Love and Justice
by Dragon Star Empress
Summary: Brave Police J-Decker While Yuuta is away for training, Hana who is fresh out of the academy is assigned to work with the Brave Police until he returns but will any of them ever accept her as part of their team DekkadoxOC DrillBoyxOC McCranexSeia
1. Chapter 1

I know in the English subbed first episode and on wikipedia his name is s spelled Deckerd, but it sounds like Dekkardo when they say it in the show, I've never actually seen it spelled that way, but I did see it spelled Dekkado a couple places online, so that's the spelling I'm going with for my story.

Special thanks to my beta reader supergeek17 for all of her help with this, without her help it wouldn't be half as good as it is, not to mention she helped come up with some of the best scenes that will be seen latter in the story. She also put the time into finding the Japanese honorifics and added them.

I just started learning Japanese after seeing the series for the first time a couple of months ago and can only pick out occasional words, so I'm sure there's a good chance I'll end up getting facts wrong. If anyone who does understand Japanese reads this and notices anything I've messed up please let me know and I'll try to fix it if possible.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except Hana.

* * *

"You're assigning me to work with the _robots_?" Hana Ichimira asked in shock as she followed the commissioner of the Metropolitan Tokyo Police Department, a tall, lean man in his mid thirties named Juuzo Saejima, down the hall of the police station. "But Commissioner-sensei--"

Saejima cut Hana off with a wave of his hand. "You heard right, Ichimira-kun," he informed her in a very business-like tone. "They need humans on their team, someone to do the job when their size makes it next to impossible for them to go in and make arrests."

"I thought there was a boy who worked with them," Hana weakly protested. "A teenager, what's-his-name…"

"Yuuta Tomonaga," the commissioner replied, leading Hana down a short flight of stairs. "He never had any official training to speak of-- just whatever he picked up in the field with the force. When he graduated from secondary a few months ago, we sent him to the Academy for some more formal--" he chuckled wryly-- "not to mention _official _training."

"Commissioner-sensei, the Academy brings up another valid point," Hana tried again. "With all due respect, I just graduated from the Academy myself-- surely there's someone better qualified than I for this assignment."

"Actually, that's part of _why _I'm assigning you to the Brave Police force in the first place," Saejima explained, holding up a file folder with Hana's name printed on it. "I spoke with all of your academy instructors-- every one of them said you were highly respectful of your superiors and nearly bent over backwards to tolerate even the most bothersome of your fellow cadets." He lowered the folder. "Quite the glowing report, honestly, and it only further convinces me that even our most senior officers couldn't take some of the 'bots with whom you'll be working."

"I beg your pardon, Commissioner-sensei?" Hana queried.

"Yuuta-kun has only been at the Academy for a few months," Saejima began, "and in that time span I've already had about twenty failed attempts at finding someone else to work with them until his graduation."

"Is it really that bad?" Hana asked, trying to picture the situation prior to her arrival and debriefing that morning.

"Just to give you an idea," Saejima began wryly, "the last officer I had working with them was carried by the shirt collar, kicking and screaming, into my officer in the mouth of a robot in the form of a dog. He then promptly dropped to the floor and I was equally promptly informed that the force simply couldn't work with him due to his inability to follow orders.

"None of the twenty previous attempts handled taking orders from a robot very well-- kept trying to turn the tables, tell them all what to do. The force leader, Dekkado-san, was patient enough about it, but the rest of 'em knew damn good and well that he was in charge and didn't take orders from anyone else lying down. I'm hoping they'll react better to someone newer to the force, not to mention closer to Yuuta-kun's age."

"Oh…" Hana replied slowly, then tried again: "But if they're robots, can't you just reprogram them to take orders from someone else?

Saejima fixed Hana with a hard glare. "Ichimira-kun, you'll soon find that _none_ of these robots can be so easily reprogrammed like a computer."

Hana tried not to squirm under the commissioner's gaze as she asked, "How is that even possible?"

"There was some kind of interference when Dekkado-san's AI system was first brought online, making him fully sentient, as are all of the robots with whom you'll be working," Saejima explained. "The department has been working with some of Tokyo's leading scientists and engineers in an attempt to recreate whatever made them sentient-- we've had enough success to not call the project a total and complete failure, we've never managed to find the definitive cause though. The experiment can be run with one hundred identical robots the exact same way a dozen times, and yet only one robot would walk away sentient. Most of the scientists have all but given up and just accepted that we're witnesses to a miracle, one that's becoming more and more rare by the year."

Without thinking, Hana let out a low whistle. "Guess that shows you how much I really know-- I'd always assumed they just had highly advanced AI systems."

"That's all they were originally meant to be, and--" Saejima chuckled darkly-- "what we tend to let the public think."

Hana reacted a little more violently than she would have liked. "Begging the commissioner-sensei's pardon," she began, bowing deeply, "but doesn't the public have the right to know that their… _defenders_ are just as sentient as you and I?"

"And risk the scandal on the department's hands?" Saejima asked incredulously. "Of course not! If the public knew the truth about the Brave Police force, there'd be a backlash from here to kingdom come-- people would question their creation, good intentions or not. I can name at least five people-- all of whom very high ranking-- who would scream for their destruction if they found out about them being sentient."

"Can't your protect them?" Hana questioned, hiding her revulsion that anyone would so easily take a sentient life… even if it _was_ a robotic one.  
"Hardly," Saejima scoffed. "Can't protect this bunch from the mentality that man has no right creating life outside of procreation-- even if we can't control whether an AI robot becomes sentient or not."  
**  
**"Mary Shelley would be so proud," Hana muttered darkly**.  
**  
"At first we thought we could control the bestowing of sentient life," Saejima went on, apparently having missed Hana's analysis. "Our first attempts were the creation of the build team-- wildly successful, as were a few other subsequent attempts. Finally, our luck ran out and we haven't been able to create more than a couple sentient robots since.

"Many of the people involved in the robots' creation have come to think that we never had any control over the robots being sentient, that once God decided there were enough to handle any problems that might arise, He stopped allowing them to become sentient. The few who have become sentient since then have always been created right before some major crisis that couldn't be handled by the police or the regular AI system robots. And that, Officer Ichimira-kun, hasn't happened in _quite some time_."

Hana was stunned into silence as she considered how unique and, indeed… _miraculous _her future robotic colleagues were. She felt under more pressure than fruit preserves being canned.

Saejima laughed at her shaken expression. "Relax, Ichimira-kun," he told her, clapping her on the shoulder and leading her further down the hall.

"Commissioner-sensei, are you sure I'm really the best person to work with them?" Hana mumbled as Saejima withdrew his hand.

"As long as you remember that Dekkado-kun is your superior officer and follow his orders as well as you have those of your previous superiors, you should do just fine," the commissioner reassured as he lead her to a door labeled in block print Deckerd Room.

"In all honesty, it's no different than working with the rest of the force, except instead of working with humans, you'll be working with robots." With that, he pushed the door open and lead her inside.

Hana froze in the doorway for a second when she saw the huge room full of large desks, large office chairs and large-- ranging in size from ten to fifteen feet tall and who _knew_ how heavy-- robots. The room's occupants weren't totally foreign to Hana, considering that it was pretty hard to turn on the six o'clock newscast and not see at least two of them, but to see them in person... Hoo boy, whole new ball game. Shaking off the shock, she stepped fully into the room (kind of small for such on integral part of the Metropolitan Tokyo Police Department) with her head held high in an attempt to conceal her quaking nerves.

She didn't do very well-- a red and orange robot, whom Saejima introduced as Drill Boy, stepped forward and bowed, first to Saejima and then to Hana. "Don't be so nervous lookin'," Drill Boy told her, "we don't bite." He waved is hand at a large, slate grey robotic dog (no doubt the one to which Saejima had earlier referred) sitting along the wall. "Well, _he _might, but the rest of us don't." Hana returned the bow, watching the dog out of the corner of her hazel eyes.

"You have nothing to worry about-- Shadow Maru-san doesn't bite, either," a voice behind her reassured. Hana turned around and found herself (relatively) face-to-face with a sleek blue and white robot, the tallest of the group. He stepped up to Hana and bowed,surprisingly deeply to someone his junior. "I'm Dekkado," he told her, straightening himself and smiling warmly. "Welcome to the Brave Police force."

Hana relaxed slightly, comforted and mildly surprised by Dekkado's warm smile and apparent willingness to give her a fighting chance. "_Doomo arigato_," she replied sincerely, bowing just as deeply and straightening herself in turn. "I hope that I'll be able to assist you in any way I can and that we can all…"

Hana trailed off, acutely aware of multiple pairs of eyes on her, causing her palms to start sweating and her voice to lamely finish the statement with, "…get along."

"So long as you remember Dekkado-senpai is in charge and stay the hell out of our way, we'll get along just fine," a red and gold robot Dekkado introduced as Dumpson told her tartly, not looking up from the sudokopuzzle he'd been working on since Hana's arrival.

Hana stepped forward, fully on the defense, when Saejima cut in, "She'll do fine, Dumpson-san," He turned to Hana. "If they give you any grief, let Dekkado-san or I know."

"Yes, Commissioner-sensei," Hana replied, hoping there wouldn't be any problems to begin with.

"Great-- I'll leave you to it, then," Saejima said, giving Hana and the Brave Police force (now one and the same) a short bow and leaving the new co-workers to each other.

After the commissioner's departure, Dekkado introduced Hana to the rest of the force-- Power Joe, who seemed sociable and competent enough in his work life, if a little flighty in his personal one; McCrane, Dekkado's somber lieutenant and the force's resident marksman; and Gun Max, whose attitude was reminiscent of a cross between a So-Cal surfer and your older teenage brother-- and gave her the (brief) grand tour of the headquarters.

"Your office is here," Dekkado told her, referring to a loft about six feet above Hana's head that sat on a concrete ledge that jutted out nearly seven feet. "You'll find your things there already."

"_Arigato_, Dekkado-senpai," Hana thanked, bowing again and entering the loft that was her new office. She chose to ignore Drill Boy's sputtered protest, "We're giving her Yuuta-chama's de-- _ow_!" (The "ow," of course, being the result of McCrane sharply striking the younger bot on the back of the head in an effort to silence him.)

Hana quickly glanced down at her desk-- a phone, a computer and the cardboard box of her belongings-- then over the office of the Brave Police force, feeling very much like an insect surveying the denizens of Mount Olympus.

-------

Hana was given some time to settle into her new office, and then spent the next several hours being debriefed about the cases the force had been working on, as well as some of the cases they had dealt with in the past, many with stunning success. By lunch, she was ready to curl up under her desk and weep in overwhelming, total uselessness-- how could she, a human and a rookie to boot, be of any real use to them?

Sighing deeply, she stood to retrieve her lunch from the rickety and semi-unreliable-looking refrigerator across the room. A shocked gasp escaped her throat as a boa constrictor nearly four feet in length slithered across the floor in front of her. Trying to calm her rattled nerves,she slowly and as un-menacingly as possible walked over to it. Seeing a broom out of the corner of her eye, Hana grabbed it and carefully picked the snake up with the handle, holding the creature away from her body until she established its intentions.

Which were to, apparently, slither around her back and waist with its tail curled around her left arm and its head resting in the crook of her right elbow. Sighing in relief, Hana carried it over to the edge of her office to ask the robots if they knew where it had come from.

She stopped in her tracks when she heard muffled snickering, which seemed to be coming from below her. Confused, she looked down to see Drill Boy hiding against the wall where the floor of her loft dropped down to the robots' studio office. Glancing up again, she realized the rest of the force was watching her rather intently, waiting to see what she would do next… and looking a little surprised at her reaction to the snake.

Trying not to growl under her breath, she knelt down directly above Drill Boy and asked as easily as if they were discussing the weather, "Drill Boy-san, is this yours?" She addressed the room as a whole: "If he doesn't belong to anyone here, he's coming home with me."

Drill Boy's head snapped up to look at her, and he jumped up to is full height, his expression somewhere between shock and confusion. After a moment, he queried, "Why aren't you screaming? Why aren't you running around? Why aren't you doing _anything_?!"

"What makes you think I'd do any of that?" Hana questioned, smoothly meeting Drill Boy's light green eyes.

"Well, Yuuta's sisters Kurumi and Azuki always freaked when they saw him," the young bot explained, despite the fact that two-thirds of the names he listed were lost on Hana. "Even one of the officers working with us a few days ago jumped up onto the desk when he saw him."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Drill Boy," Hana replied, reaching up to rub the serpent's head with her finger, "but for one thing, I grew up around my brother's pet snakes since I was about six and for another…" She lightly stroked the snake's scales for icy emphasis. "…this thing is so sweet and tame it's hard to imagine anyone being afraid of him."  
Satisfied with Drill Boy's mind-blown expression, Hana walked to the refrigerator and retrieved her lunch, then sat at her desk and began to eat. The snake seemed undisturbed by the activity and stayed curled around Hana's shoulders and waist, where it would remain for the rest of the day until Hana finally gave it back to Drill Boy before leaving.

* * *

Please leave a review.


	2. Chapter 2

A month later…

Hana sighed as she got up from the picnic table behind the police station where she had been eating her lunch and headed back inside. She still had fifteen minutes of lunch break left, but she had nothing to do outside but worry about whether or not the robots would ever actually want her around.

Even after about a month of working with them, Hana was still wondering if they would accept her. Oh, they were polite enough to her, but the nagging paranoia that they didn't really want her around, and that they avoided her like a leper whenever they could, still existed.

Well, the latter didn't really apply to Drill Boy, who'd made it his mission to find a way to scare Hana to her wits' end. In the past week alone, she'd found herself dealing with a rat the length of her forearm, a tarantula and a salamander the length of her hand crawling across her desk and a three foot alligator wandering across the floor of her office. Hana did have to admit (to herself at least) that she was grateful Drill Boy hadn't been actively watching after he released the alligator-- when she first saw the scaly creature wandering the floor, she jumped back several feet; once she realized it wore a muzzle and a collar, her fears lessened considerably. Just to spite the young robot, she had sat down and started petting it while waiting for Drill Boy to poke his head up over the wall. When he finally did, apparently expecting a blood-curdling scream or something along those lines but not getting it, Hana hadn't been able to help smiling at the look of disappointment on his face when he asked her if she was afraid of anything. Her response was to smile coolly and inform him that she could think of no animal of which she was afraid.

That was all the invitation Drill Boy needed to test Hana's statement. After work that day, he'd "innocently" invited her to see the rest of his apparent pets, which he kept in his living quarters housed at the back of the Brave Police station, just like those of his comrades. Casually, he led Hana into the room, which seemed to have been converted from a few adjacent offices. Like any other teen's room, Drill Boy's living quarters were a hodgepodge of belongings and clutter.

However, Drill Boy's definition of "belongings" was slightly different from those of any other teenager. Sitting on a series of shelves along the far wall were several large glass aquariums, which housed any number of large snakes, turtles and other reptiles, the glass labeled with a handwritten sign labeled in Drill Boy's rounded, childlike kanji with a name and the creature's species. Set into the floor along the perpendicular wall was a large pool with a sea turtle that was missing a large portion of one flipper and sported a large patch over part of its shell. In another corner, a large chain-link enclosure contained a jungle. Before she could ask about its purpose, Drill Boy made a string of clicking sounds with his tongue and threw a dead chicken into the enclosure; mere seconds later, a large white tiger jumped out of the bushes to eat it.Nodding with satisfaction, Drill Boy turned to Hana; the young woman was examining a second caged jungle, this one housing a family of Japanese macaques. She smiled over her shoulder at him, wordlessly challenging him to show her more of his "pets," and he obliged her, determination to scare her silly with one of them etched in his features.

Drill Boy's plan seemed to backfire _royally_. When even his writhing collection of hissing cockroaches failed to even slightly disturb her, Drill Boy switched tactics and began explaining how he had gotten each of the animals-- most of them had been confiscated from people who had been selling them illegally. When no suitable homes could be found for them, Drill Boy had begged permission to take them in so they wouldn't be put to sleep. Admittedly, not all the animals were from the black market and the like. The sea turtle, named Kameko, was a rescue project-- she'd been hit by a boat propeller and had been injured too severely to ever be able to survive on her own in the wild, but none of the local zoos had room to keep her. The hissing cockroaches were just there for looks (and attempts at scaring new female officers), but Drill Boy seemed to pride himself on his collection of wildlife.

Hana grinned at the cocky smile Drill Boy had flashed her as he showboated for her yesterday; however, her mirth was short lived-- as Hana came up to the office door, she stopped when she heard her name. Pressing her ear to the door, she found herself listening in on the apparently rather heated discussion occurring beyond it--

"… All I'm really saying is we don't need her around," Dumpson was saying. "If we have to deal with a real threat, she'll just get in the way."

"You never had a problem with Yuuta coming with us," McCrane pointed out levelly, "and he had far more potential to get in the way."

"That's different!" Dumpson snapped, slamming his massive hand on what Hana assumed to be a desk. "Yuuta never got in our way-- he knew when to make himself scarce or not! He was part of our team and damn near fully responsible for our existence."

"He was still a human and just a child when he started working with us," Dekkado reminded. "At least Hana has had proper training."

"Look-- we're almost halfway through this hell," Power Joe pointed out. "The Academy's only keeping Yuuta for six months, and we've handled the first three just fine. Why would the last three be any different?"

"Because that'll be when we need to handcuff someone or search a building we're too big to fit into," Dekkado tartly observed.

"The human officers get to a scene right before or after us," Dumpson dismissed. "We'll be fine."

"And if they don't, what then?" Dekkado asked, a hard edge Hana had never heard before in his voice. "I've lost criminals before, when Yuuta wasn't there with the cuffs-- there was nothing to stop them from running." A low snarl escaped his throat. "I don't know about the rest of you, but of all the sensations I've felt, watching a criminal escape and being powerless to stop it without killing them is among the least pleasant."

"She's really not that bad," Drill Boy observed. "At least she doesn't try to order us around like the last twenty, and she's pretty brave… for a human girl, at least."

"Yeah, she's real brave when all she's dealing with are your pets, but she's just a rookie-- stellar Academy record or not-- and it's been quiet since she got here," Power Joe told Drill boy, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "I'll bet you anything that the first time she sees any real action, she freezes up and panics."

"Oh, you're _on_, little man!" Drill Boy shot back.**  
**  
"Why do you even bother wasting your time arguing about it?" Shadow Maru asked, laying aside his massive Dixon-Ticonderoga pencil, apparently giving up on his report. "Whether we like it or not, we're stuck with her until Yuuta gets back."

"Unless Dekkado tells Saejima we don't want a human partner until Yuuta gets back," Dumpson suggested. "Saejima listens to Dekkado--"

"If any of us could convince Saejima, it would be Dekkado," Gun Max agreed. "It would at least be worth a try."

Dekkado let out a frustrated sigh. "I'm not going to do that," he flatly denied. "She follows orders, doesn't try to tell us what to do and has been doing everything she can to get along with us. You're all just going to have to get use to having her around."

"But Dekkado, we work more efficiently without her," Power Joe protested. "We wouldn't have to worry about her getting in the way and you won't have to wait for her to get in when you need to get to a crime scene-- just an observation that may not mean anything, but _as quickly as possible _seems to get crimes solved and lives saved and--"

"Hana won't help," the rest of the group chimed in.

The words still echoing in her ears, Hana stumbled back and glanced at her watch. She was probably better off spending the last ten minutes of her break outside, she decided, and she ran none too gracefully down the hall and to the area behind the police station. Hana leaned against the wall and slid into a sitting position, pulling her knees up to her chest and burying her face against her knees. They were right-- they _were_ better off without her, and she would be better off working with other human officers. On top of everything else, her conscience was screaming at her for being so stupid as to tear the team apart by being the crux of their argument. How long and often did they have this discussion? It sounded like a common enough refrain… but was that because it was well rehearsed or just repeated so--

"Mind if I join you?"

Gasping in shock, Hana looked up to see Dekkado standing over her. "S-s-sure," she stammered, knowing she had no right to tell Dekkado where he could or could not go and wondering if he was going to tell her that yes, he had agreed to ask to have her transferred

Dekkado sat down next to her and watched the passing cars and pedestrians, then quietly told Hana, "I don't know how long you were listening, but… I wouldn't worry about what Dumpson-san and the others were saying."

Hana looked up at him, fully caught in the act after-the-fact or not. "You knew I was there?" she asked quietly.

"Shadow Maru-san got tired of the arguing and left the office," Dekkado explained. "He saw you leaving and came back to tell me."

"Maybe you guys _would_ be better off working alone," Hana said slowly, the misery in her voice evident. "You haven't needed me for the last month and it's just ending up with everyone arguing."

"Don't tell yourself that, Hana-san," Dekkado consoled. "The last month has been quiet, but eventually we'll end up in a situation where we need your help. We've grown so used to working with each other and our work habits that it's hard to adjust to working with someone else." He chuckled lightly. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Of course," Hana replied, wondering where in the world Dekkado was taking the conversation.

"In all honestly, you're a lot easier to get along with than Gun Max was when he first joined the force," Dekkado told her.

"Really?" Hana asked in disbelief. "But he's so laid back and--"

"Yes, _now_," Dekkado gently cut off. "But he's mellowed out quite a bit-- at first, he had a nasty habit of running off on his own, completely disregarding orders and he didn't get along very well with the others. There was a reason for his behavior, though-- he was missing his old partner, having trouble adjusting.

"The same thing is happening between you and the rest of the force-- it may take time, but the others will accept you. We all miss Yuuta-san, and even though they know he's coming back, they still feel like you're replacing him."

"What about you?" Hana asked.

Dekkado looked up at the cumulus clouds punctuating the Wedgwood blue sky. "I probably miss Yuuta-san the most," he admitted slowly, "but I'm also the leader of our group, and I've had to learn to keep my own feelings out of the decisions I make-- in this and every other matter I come up against. I admit, for a while, even I had a hard time seeing any of the officers who were assigned to work with us as anything more than unwanted replacements… at least until you were assigned."

"What do you mean?" Hana asked. "I can't imagine I was or even _am_ that different from the others."

"The others came in and tried to take over," Dekkado explained, "as if they thought they were there to replace Yuuta as our boss-- we _did_ call him Boss, Hana-san, as a term of affection-- even though I was left in charge. You, on the other hand, were willing to accept that I was in charge and have obeyed every order you've been given. You are honestly doing much better than any of the others before you did-- McCrane-san has privately told me that he's nearly ready to accept you, and I believe Shadow Maru will soon, as well. The others may take more time, but if you give them enough of it, they'll come around."

"I hope you're right, Dekkado-senpai," Hana mumbled. Dekkado suddenly stood up, transformed into his police cruiser mode and the door opened; Hana quickly jumped to her feet as well. "What's going on?"

"Get in-- we just got a call," Dekkado replied, urgency in his voice. "There's an apartment complex burning a mile or so from here, and we're the closest available unit."

Hana jumped into the drivers' seat, buckling herself in; Dekkado slammed the door shut behind her and tore out of the parking lot, with McCrane, Power Joe, Dumpson and Gun Max following a few seconds later.


	3. Chapter 3

When the Brave Police force got to the scene of the apartment complex fire a few minutes later, thick black smoke billowed out of the building as Drill Boy and Shadow Maru, the former having been on patrol and the latter having flown to the scene at the time the call first went out, helped people climb out the windows and set them on the ground. The sound of glass breaking and the smell of the smoke and assorted burning objects permeated the air.

Hana quickly got out of Dekkado's cruiser mode, and Dekkado transformed. "Is everyone out?" he called over the sounds of the fire and panicking apartment denizens.

"This is the last of them," Shadow Maru replied as he set two more people on the ground.

"Cryin' shame Duke went back to England," Drill Boy added, looking up at the building as some upper floor windows exploded from the heat. Jumping to shield a family from the falling glass, he added, "We could use his sorry _ketsuoana_ right now."

"What did you expect?" Power Joe reminded as he oversaw the reunion between a husband and wife. "That's where Regina is, and where Regina is--"

"Duke follows," Gun Max finished, checking the sprained wrist of a teenaged girl.

A woman's cry caught the group's attention, even over the chaos of the scene as a whole. "My baby-- my little girl, she's not here!" a woman in her mid thirties wailed as she searched crowds.

"Where was she last?" Hana asked as the woman ran up to her.

"In our apartment," the woman managed to gasp between sobs. "She was taking a nap-- I only left long enough to come down and get the mail, but when I tried to go back, the stairwell was on fire. Please, you have to get her out-- she's only three. She's probably terrified. Please, you've got to save my baby!"

"We'll get her out," Hana reassured. "Which apartment is yours?"

"Five fifty-one-- that's our living room window there," the woman told her, pointing out the window in question.

"We'll do everything we can to get her out," Hana assured her, turning to Dekkado. "Can you tell where she is?"

"The fire's making it impossible for us to identify any heat signatures," Dekkado told her, looking up at the window.

"Damnit! What's the fire department's ETA?" Hana called over her shoulder.

"Five minutes-- there's a restaurant burning on the other side of town and most of the trucks were there," McCrane answered.

Cursing between her teeth, Hana tore a strip of cloth off of the bottom of her shirt and tied it over her mouth and nose, turning to Dekkado and saying, "Get me in that window."

"Are you crazy? That's too dangerous!" another officer who had just gotten to the scene queried as he walked up to her.

"Look, I don't know about you, but I became a police officer so I could help people, not sit my ass and worry about my own safety," Hana snapped, then turned and looked expectantly up as Dekkado finished transforming into J-Decker.

"You'll be killed in there," he told her as he picked her up.

"Did you not hear what I told that guy five seconds ago?" Hana questioned, pointing down to the officer to whom she'd spoken. Determination etched itself into her face. "I'd rather die trying than spend the rest of my life wondering."

He nodded slightly, sensing the futility of arguing with Hana. "Just don't get yourself killed," he told her.

"Can do," she replied as she slipped off of his hand and into the window, avoiding the jagged broken glass.

The layout of the apartment was very simple, and, dropping to her hands and knees, Hana quickly made her way to the bedrooms. Much to her displeasure, the smoke was so thick that it was impossible to see more than a foot in front of her. She searched the first room, which looked like it was a child's room, but found no sign of life, the child's or otherwise, then headed to the other room. As she crawled into the room, she could hear a child sobbing hysterically and calling for her mommy over the roar of the flames. Moving as quickly as she could, Hana crawled over to the bed and pulled back a blanket to find the little girl curled up in a ball clinging to a small white kitten as she cried.

"It's going to be alight, sweetie," Hana consoled. "My name is Hana-- I'm going to take you to your mom." She gently picked the girl up and pulled the blanket back around her and over her head to protect her from the smoke. Making a bold move, Hana stood and ran back into the hall, making her way to the living room and sweet, sweet safety.

When she stepped into the living room, her heart sank when she found a wall of flames between her and the window. Hana pulled out the communicator that linked directly into the robots comm-link system. "Dekkado-senpai?" she called over the roar of the flames, trying not to panic. "McCrane-sama? Someone answer!"

"Are you alright?" "Where are you?" "We thought you were dead." Dekkado's, McCrane's and Dumpson's voices all crackled, demanded, through the comm device at the same time.

"I'm fine, and so is the little girl, but I can't get out the way I came in-- it's covered in flames," Hana replied, taking a step back as the flames inched closer. She cried out as a portion of the floor gave out behind her and her foot went through the hole in the hardwood flooring; she pulled her foot out just as flames shot up through the hole from below. Suddenly, two huge hands came through the window and wall and wrapped around her. Hana clenched her eyes shut and held the child closer as she felt them both being lifted and moved and heard the girl cry out.

When the hands opened again, Hana and her young charge were back outside, and Hana found herself staring into J-Decker's visage. "I thought you said you couldn't tell where anyone was in there! How did you know where we were?" she demanded, trying to keep her voice from shaking and her mind off of just how close she had come to death.

"The communication device has a tracking signal," J-Decker explained as he lowered the two females to the ground. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Hana replied as she slid off J-Decker's hands. A loud crashing caught her attention, and she turned to look at the building as it collapsed. "Wonderful timing getting us out." She grimaced and swore through her teeth as excruciating pain shot through her ankle when she put her weight on it.

Such an action did not escape Dumpson's notice, especially considering that he was standing relatively close to her. "I thought you said you were fine," he observed tartly, bridging the gap between them and kneeling down to get a better look at her injured leg.

"I am-- it's just a scratch," she dismissed, waving Dumpson's face away from her leg and turning as the woman ran up and took her daughter.

"_Arigato-- d-domo arigato,_" the woman sobbed as she hugged her daughter.

"_Do itashi mashite_," Hana replied, bowing. "It's in my job description."

"And now your job description includes going to have that leg looked at-- please excuse us, ma'am," Dumpson said as he addressed and bowed to the mother and child. With next to no warning, he smoothly picked Hana up and, hauling her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, carried her over to one of the ambulances.

Sighing in resignation, Hana informed him (or rather, his back), "Y'know, there's probably a reason you're a detective and not a medic."

"Yeah, yeah-- cry me a river," Dumpson shot back with a wry half-smile as he handed her over to the paramedics.

Once the paramedics told Hana the wound wasn't life-threatening, but would need stitches and had put a temporary bandage on it, Dekkado drove her to the hospital to have it properly treated. A few hours later, when Hana hobbled out of the hospital on crutches, she was surprised to find herself quickly surrounded by her seven robot coworkers.

"Why aren't you boys back at the station?" she queried.

"We wanted to see if you were okay," Drill Boy explained.

"We didn't have anything better to do," Power Joe teasingly chimed in.

"If it's 'not that bad,' then why are you on crutches?" Gun Max asked.

"It's _not_ that bad-- just a little deeper than I thought," Hana explained. "The doctors said if it had been any deeper, it would have gone through the tendon so they don't want me putting any weight on it for a while-- all I got was some mild painkillers and a few stitches."

"And how many is a few?" Shadow Maru asked, arching an eye ridge.

Sighing, Hana said, "Sixteen-- eight on each side."

"You're injured that badly and they just let you walk out of there on your own?" Dumpson demanded. "I _knew_ the medical system in Tokyo was going to Hell in a handbasket!"

"Dumpson, you read that in the Op-Ed pages," McCrane deadpanned.

"Your point?" Dumpson shot back.

"Guys, it's _really_ not that bad, honest," Hana repeated, cutting off the pending argument.

"Sure it's not-- we've only seen Yuuta have to get half as many stitches and he was in agonizing pain for weeks," Gun Max retorted smoothly.

"Oh, and he nearly went crazy when it started itching while it healed," Drill Boy added.

"Just... please, Hana-san, tell me this won't put you out of work for long," Shadow Maru asked, bringing his hand to his forehead in a very human gesture. "So help me, if they try giving us another new partner, I'll go mad."

Hana couldn't help smiling. "I'll probably just be stuck in the office unless you boys absolutely need me-- I convinced the doctors to let me go back to work, so long as I stay off my feet and keep my foot up most of the time."

The group sighed in relief, mumbling something about Shadow Maru putting the perfect phraseology to their thoughts.

"Come on-- let's get you home so you can rest," Dekkado chuckled as he transformed and opened the door for her and as McCrane helped Hana into the backseat so she could stretch her leg out.

----

"I think you've earned their respect, Hana-san," Dekkado said at one point as he drove her home.

"What do you mean?" Hana asked.

"What you did today… you really impressed them and earned a great deal of their respect," he explained. "I have a feeling you won't have many more problems with them."

"I was just doing my job," Hana replied as she leaned her head against the window and started to doze off as the painkillers started to kick in. "They'dve done that, too, probably."

"This isn't about _them_, Hana-san," Dekkado replied, gentle but firm. "You did a lot more than just your job-- I can't think of many human officers who would have run into that building without knowing for sure the girl was still alive."

"Just want to help people..." Hana mumbled before giving in to the painkiller-induced sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Hana spent the next several days at her desk, going over some of the open cases the force had been working on and hoping to find something the others had missed that would get the case moved to the "closed" filing cabinet… or at least something interesting to keep her distracted for a while.

This was the situation at hand when she was going over some of their most recent cases when she noticed something. "Dekkado-san, I think I found something," she called across the room.

"What is it?" Dekkado asked from where he was sitting at his desk, looking up.

"Bring up cases one-forty-eight, one-fifty-one and one-fifty-four-- I think they may be connected," Hana told him.

"A grocery store robbery, a jewelry store robbery and a house robbery?" Dumpson asked a couple of minutes later, looking at the files on his own computer.

"Why in the world would you think those are connected?" Power Joe queried. "Aside from the robbery part?"

"Try looking at the pictures from the security cameras from the stores and from the pawn shop where the stuff stolen from the house was taken," Hana suggested.

The force members all bent over their computer screens. "You're right-- it looks like the same girl in all three robberies," Dekkado confirmed.

"Why would she be robbing such a variety of places?" Drill Boy asked.

"I think she's stealing just to survive, possibly take care of someone, and not to make any real money from the stuff," Hana replied.

"What makes you think that?" Dekkado asked.

"The randomness of the places she's stealing from-- it's almost like she's trying to decide if its easier to steal the food and things she needs or steal more valuable stuff and sell it for profit to buy the stuff she needs," Hana mused.

"Okay, so we have someone who's new to petty theft-- theft in general, actually-- and might feel like she doesn't have any other options," McCrane interpreted. "What makes you think she's taking care of someone else?"

"McCrane-sama, consider the facts," Hana began. "Look at the lists of things she's stolen: for example, the people who owned the house that was robbed had an eight year old daughter. Several items of the daughter's clothing were reported to be missing-- shoes, shirts and trousers, as well as several blankets.

"At the grocery store, she not only stole food, she also hit the toy aisle and took some coloring books, crayons and a Barbie doll in a pink and white dress with dark pink streaks in her hair.

"Keeping that last detail in mind, look at shot ten-eighty-seven of the jewelry store video."

"It's a picture of the girl pocketing something from one of the cases-- what's so special about that?" Drill Boy asked.

"Zoom in on the case she's standing near, the one by the display window," Hana instructed.

"There's another girl there," Gun Max observed after a moment.

"Exactly," Hana confirmed. "From what I can tell, I'd say she's outside the store, waiting."

"Is… is she holding what I think she's holding?" Shadow Maru asked as he leaned closer to his computer screen for a closer look at the frame.

"If by that you mean the same doll that was stolen from the grocery store, then yes," Hana said.

"Alright," Dekkado said with a note of finality in his voice and standing. "Gun Max, you have patrol duty for this afternoon-- keep an eye out for those girls. When you're done with your regular rounds, check some of the alleys around the part of town were the robberies took place. I don't want them on the streets any longer-- it's too dangerous."

"Consider it done," Gun Max replied, bowing slightly. "I'll radio you if I find anything."

"Good," Dekkado went on. "Hana, start going over the runaway and missing child reports from the Tokyo area; the rest of you, check reports from the suburbs and surrounding towns until you find something. If they have such a connection that the elder is taking care of the younger one, it shouldn't be too hard to find out who they are."

As the group set about their assigned tasks, Dekkado turned to Hana and praised, "Good work finding that connection-- you've got a good eye for details."

"_Domo arigato_, Dekkado-san," Hana replied, unable to hide a small smile.

"Hana, what did I tell you the other day?" Dumpson cut in, looking expectantly at her.

"Uhm, take it easy, stay off my foot and I should be at home resting, damnit?" Hana asked innocently, quoting Dumpson.

"Besides all that," McCrane replied, glancing away from his screen for a moment.

"Then I don't know-- what?" Hana yielded.

"To drop the damned formality," Dumpson told her. "We're partners-- a team, so there's no need to be so formal all the time."

"If you insist, Dumpson-sama," Hana replied, grinning at him when he quirked an eye ridge and shook his head at her formal address.

After a couple hours of intense searching, Drill Boy broke the silence by announcing, "I found them! Alexis Brown and Samantha Ratch, sixteen and six, respectively. They're half-sisters-- both ran away two and a half months ago. Well, their mother Angela Smith claims Alexis kidnapped Samantha, but it still came up under a runaway file."

"That sounds like them-- the ages are right and they ran away less than two weeks before the first robbery. Where were they from?" Dekkado asked.

"Tachikawa, about twenty-five miles west of here," Drill Boy replied.

"What about the mother or the girl's fathers? Can you find anything else out about them?" Hana asked.

"Based on the mother's account, Alexis' father was Michael Brown-- died when Alexis was seven. Samantha's father was a guy named Nathan Ratch-- Angela and Nathan never actually married, though-- and he died three years after Samantha was born in a drug-related shooting. Angela herself has multiple counts of DUI, selling and using drugs and was suspected of child abuse, but there wasn't enough evidence to take the girls from her," Drill Boy recited.

"Those poor girls-- I hope we can find them before anything else happens to them," Hana said, reaching for a water bottle that was sitting on her desk, accidentally bumping her pencil can in the process. The can tipped over, spilling its contents all over the desk and rolling across the desk. Hana managed to catch or otherwise keep the writing implements on her desk, but wasn't fast enough to catch the can and it rolled off the desk and over to the edge of the wall that separated Hana's loft office from the robots' studio office, it teetered precariously for a moment and finally rolled off the edge.

"Don't _even_ think about it," Shadow Maru, in dog form, ordered from where he had been laying by the door when Hana started to stand to get down into the lower portion of the office to retrieve the can. He walked over, picked up the can in his mouth and dropped it into Hana's hand.

"Thank you," Hana said sincerely as the can dropped into her hands, "but I could have gotten it myself."

"Sure, and then when all the blood went rushing into your injured leg-- which you've had propped up all day, I'd like to remind-- and then you would have been in pain and started complaining about not being able to stand and walk without your leg hurting and how much you hate not being able to be up and moving and helpful," Shadow Maru told her dryly.

"I don't complain that much… do I?" Hana questioned.

"Constantly," Shadow Maru deadpanned.

"Constantly?" Hana repeated sheepishly. This was a breaking news bulletin coming at you live from SMNN-- Shadow Maru News Network…

"No, she doesn't," Drill Boy cut in. "I've only ever heard her complain in the evening before Dekkado takes her home and that's because it's like you said-- she has her leg propped up all day and the blood rushing back into it after so long hurts her."

"She may not be saying it _out loud_," Shadow Maru replied, "but if you watch her face, you can tell when it's driving her to madness and that she wants to complain."

"That doesn't count as complaining, Shadow Maru," Hana said.

"Perhaps," Shadow Maru conceded, "but you looked so embarrassed when you thought you might have been complaining that much; it's rather… _entertaining_ seeing how worried you are about making us thinking you're tough."

Hana glared tartly at him for a second before opening a desk drawer and dropping her head like she was looking for something. She was grateful for her long dark hair, which hid a great deal of her face-- it concealed the devilish grin that slowly spread across her face.

Ten minutes later she glanced up and quickly scanned the office. Everyone's heads were bent over their work, so no one-- especially Shadow Maru-- was watching. Feigning innocence, she knocked her water bottle off the side of her desk and watched it roll across the floor before noticing Drill Boy's eyes had wandered from his work to her. She barely acknowledged him as she gasped "in surprise" as the bottle rolled off the ledge and she innocently asked, "Shadow Maru, could you please get that for me?"

Shadow Maru lifted his head, almost lazily, and saw the water bottle sitting on the floor against the ledge of Hana's office. He stood and brought the bottle back to her, then went back to where he had been laying.

A few minutes later, she glanced up again; Drill Boy was watching her again. She smiled sweetly at Drill Boy and "accidentally" knocked the bottle off of her desk again, asking Shadow Maru to please get it for her, and again Shadow Maru retrieved and returned it to her.

A few minutes later, she looked up. The entire office was watching her intently, while Shadow Maru was still laying by the door in dog form. Fighting back a smile, she knocked the bottle off the desk again and as it dropped off the ledge asked sweetly, "Maru-chan, could you please fetch that for me?"

Sighing with resignation, he got up and gave her the bottle back. "Thank you-- you're such a good dog." Hana said, patting him between the ears.

"I'm a wolf, not a dog," Shadow Maru told her tartly.

"Well, I never met a wolf who could play fetch," Hana replied casually.

Although it was the truth, that was all it took to send her robotic coworkers into peals of highly, highly amused laughter. "I can't believe you got him to play fetch with you," Drill Boy laughed.

"Next time you want to pick on someone, I think you'd better find someone else-- she thinks on her feet and gets back at you," Power Joe advised Shadow Maru.

Shadow Maru transformed to robot mode, crossing his arms tightly across his chest and glaring down at Hana for a moment before finally saying, "Fine-- we're even now. _Never_ do that again."

"Consider me to be a dangerous snake: as long as you don't pick on me, I won't pick on you," Hana replied smoothly, smiling up at him.

"Agreed," Shadow Maru said before turning to glare at the others who were all still grinning or laughing at him.


	5. Chapter 5

Two weeks passed before Hana was able to walk without too much pain, although Dekkado still insisted on driving her home from work. Normally, one rarely took their work home with them, but Dekkado and Hana were dedicated to the case they'd opened regarding Alexis and Samantha; they took to taking the long way to Hana's home about a mile away from the station itself, hitting as many back alleys as they could, hoping to find some sign of the two girls.

Unfortunately their leads were rapidly growing cold or otherwise diminishing. The only new sign of them had been a recent break-in at a small general store-- the single security camera had shown a grainy black and white film segment of the older girl cramming as much food as she could into a backpack and running back out before the police could get there. Beyond that, every other lead took them headlong into a brick wall. It was frustrating, but Hana and Dekkado were, as previously mentioned, dedicated, so they kept scouring the alleyways of Tokyo on their way to and from work.

That particular night, they were just turning down another alley when Dekkado stopped. "What is it?" Hana asked from the drivers' seat (a token gesture, really).

"Someone screaming," Dekkado told her minimally as he tore down the alley.

A few moments later, Dekkado took a hairpin turn down another ally, and he and Hana saw a man who, based on his build and not his face, the majority of which was covered by a cloth, appeared to be in his early twenties pinning a slightly-younger woman to the wall, the latter kicking and screaming violently in an effort to get away from him. As soon as Dekkado's headlights hit them, the man let go of his victim and bolted down the ally.

Hana was climbing out of Dekkado instantly. "Take care of her-- I have this one," Dekkado told Hana, growling slightly as he tore off down the alley.

Hana ran over to the young woman, who had dropped to her knees and was trying not to cry... too hard. "Are you alright?" Hana asked, kneeling to her eye level.

"I… I'm fine, thank you," she mumbled, glancing up at Hana.

Hana barely managed to contain a gasp when she saw the young woman's eyes, a flinty ice blue, like she'd seen far too much in too short a time. She remembered seeing photographs of those eyes at the station earlier in the month, set into the face of a teen runaway who was becoming well-known around Tokyo as a petty thief. Of all the scenarios Hana had expected to see those eyes, this was the last one--

She'd never expected to run into Alexis after an attempted assault, with a shiner on her eye, a bloody lip and her shirt partially torn. Her sandy blonde hair was stringy and unkempt, and she smelled of sweat, but her identity was unmistakable.

"We should have someone check that eye-- it's swelling up pretty badly," Hana told her, lightly touching the skin below the shiner.

"It's not that bad," Alexis told her slowly as they stood.

"If you're sure you don't want to go to the hospital, I'll need you to come down to the station so we can get a statement from you," Hana replied.

Alexis' eyes took on a fearful gleam. "What do you mean?" she asked.

Hana took her badge out of her sweater pocket and showed it to Alexis, keeping a gentle but firm grip on her shoulder to keep her from bolting. "I'm Hana Ichimira," she explained gently. "I'm with the Tokyo Police."

"I-I-I'm sorry, I can't," Alexis stammered, taking a step away from Hana. "I have to go." Her eyes darted toward a refrigerator box that was lying on its side and covered at one end with a blanket as she turned to walk away and gather the belongings that had spilled out of her purse.

Hana had barely noticed the box at first, but when Alexis glanced at it, Hana took immediate not of it. As soon as Alexis turned her back, Hana knelt down and pulled aside the blanket, half expecting exactly what she found-- a six year old girl, a slightly smaller version of Alexis, looking back at her with fear etched in her eyes as she clung to a small stuffed rabbit. "It's alright-- I'm going to help you," she whispered, then stood, readjusting the blankets to make it seem as though they'd been untouched. "What about Samantha? You aren't just going to leave her here, are you?"

Alexis froze and turned back, glancing nervously from Hana to the box. She stood up straight and her whole demeanor grew flinty. "We're not going back to our mother," she announced hardly. "I won't let you send us back."

"We have no intention of sending you back to your mother," Dekkado consoled, reentering the alley from behind Hana, Alexis' assailant struggling to escape from his hand, "as long as you have a good reason for running away."

"No!" Alexis snapped. "You'll just send us to foster homes and we'll be separated. I won't let you separate us!"  
**  
**"After what happened tonight, do you really think you and your sister are better off here on the streets?" Hana asked gently. "What are you going to do when someone tries to do that to Samantha?"**  
**  
Alexis looked back and forth between Hana and Dekkado for a moment, then looked at Samantha as the little girl climbed out of the box. Her bravado diminishing, she asked, "Swear you won't let them separate us?"

"I can't promise you that," Hana told her softly, "but I can promise you that we'll do everything we possibly can to make sure you're not separated."

Alexis still glared at Dekkado and Hana, though not as strongly as before, as she shot several aside glances at Samantha, who had crawled out of the box and was staring, wide-eyed, at Dekkado.

Dekkado offered the young girl a warm smile as he asked, "Hana, you have a spare room at your house, don't you?"

"Yeah, I have two bedrooms, one and a half bath-- why?" Hana replied.

"If you don't mind, the girls could stay with you for the night," Dekkado explained. "It would give me a chance to see what arrangements can be made for them; if we take them in tonight things will probably end up rushed just to find them a place to stay for the night and with their age difference they would end up separated. Also--" Dekkado sent Alexis a meaningful look-- "it gives Miss Brown the night to think about what's happening."

"Can we even _do_ that?" Hana asked. Bowing slightly, she added, "Begging your pardon, but… don't we technically have to take them in since we've been looking for them for the robberi--?"

"_Technically _we're off duty," Dekkado dismissed with a wave of his hand. "You'd just be taking in a couple of homeless kids for the night. If anyone complains about it we'll tell them the truth, that it was my idea and you were just obeying your superior officer. I'll claim full responsibility."

"You would do that, Dekkado-san?" Hana asked, almost awed by her superior's selflessness.

"I would do that for anyone on the force, Hana-san," he told her simply.

"Of course, sir," Hana replied, looking back at Alexis. "What do you think? Would you like to come stay with me tonight? I have a spare room you both could stay in, and we'll worry about taking you in and making other arrangements in the morning.

"Can I take a bath there?" Samantha asked looking up hopefully at Hana.

The expression of profound hope of such a simple commodity in the little girl's pale green eyes made Hana's heart lurch. "Of course," she replied sincerely.

"Can't we go, Lexie?" Samantha asked, clinging to her big sister's hand. "They said they won't send us back to Mommy or separate us."

"… Fine," Alexis reluctantly agreed as she pulled a couple of backpacks out of the box and took her sister's hand in hers.

"We'll work things out, dear-- I promise," Hana reassured her. "Now if you'll excuse me…" She quickly became all business and rejoined Dekkado and read the assailant his rights and cuffed him, clicking them shut with satisfaction.

Dekkado transformed and Hana put the criminal in the back seat. She waved Alexis and Samantha over as Dekkado opened his passenger door. As Alexis and Samantha climbed in, she slid back into the drivers' seat and Dekkado altered his course to stop by the station.

"I'm sorry to leave you girls here," Dekkado told them as they climbed out. "Just call a taxi and get a receipt-- the department will reimburse you for the fare. I'll stop by later, to keep you posted."

"Yes, sir," Hana replied. "Thank you."

* * *

A couple hours later, Hana was in her bedroom when she heard Dekkado pull into the driveway. She stepped out onto her balcony and, leaning over the rail slightly, called down to the police cruiser, "So, were you able to work anything out for the girls?"

Dekkado transformed and walked over to stand by her balcony, explaining, "Saejima-san is still working out the details with children's services, but he said they'll do everything they can to find a foster home that will be willing to take both girls."

"And if they can't…?" Hana asked, leaning on her forearms against the railing.

"They'll either have to go to separate foster homes or be sent to the children's home," Dekkado sighed. "Because of their age difference, they would end up in separate dorms, but they would still get to see each other during the day." Dekkado told her.

"It won't work," Hana sighed. "They're too close-- Alexis won't let Samantha out of her site and Samantha won't leave her side. Right now, Alexis is taking a shower and Samantha won't move from right outside the bathroom door. I finally gave up trying to convince her to come downstairs to eat and brought her dinner up to her. They have to stay together."

"We'll find a way," Dekkado assured her.

"There's no chance of them being sent back to their mother, is there?" Hana asked. "It seems like they're just as afraid of going back to her as they are of being separated."

"With the mother's criminal record and the previous suspected abuse, as long as the girls tell a judge if they were being abused, there shouldn't be any way she can get them back," Dekkado reassured her.


	6. Chapter 6

_The next morning…_

Hana knocked on the door of the second bedroom, where her impromptu house guests had been placed for the night. "Samantha? Alexis? It's time to get up," Hana said as she opened the door. The sisters had fallen asleep on the same bed, Alexis' arms wrapped protectively around her little sister and Samantha curled into the elder's body with almost primal instinct.

Both of them started to wake up. "Don't want to get up..." Samantha mumbled, pulling a pillow over her head.

"Come on, Sam-we'll make her late to work," Alexis ordered as she sat up and shook her sister's shoulder.

"She has time to wake up a bit more before she has to get out of bed," Hana replied, setting their freshly-washed clothes on the foot of the bed. "I just wanted to find out if you two like pancakes and sausage before I went ahead and made breakfast."

"Pancakes? With maple syrup?" Samantha asked eagerly, sitting up quickly and looking very awake.

"Of course, sweety," Hana replied with a warm smile.

"Can I help make them? I'm real good at making pancakes," Samantha offered.

"If you get dressed and come down to the kitchen, I'll go get everything out," Hana suggested.

"Okay!" Samantha said excitedly as she grabbed her clothes and started to get dressed.

"Are you coming down, too?" Hana asked Alexis.

"Yeah, I guess," Alexis muttered, grabbing her clothes and heading for the bathroom.

One very messy kitchen, equally messy Samantha, a change of clothes and a short drive to the station later, Hana led the two girls into the office, where she was met by Commissioner Saejima and Dekkado. The trio offered the pair a bow, and while Dekkado took the girls to meet the other robots in the office, offering a ride in his hand, Hana and Saejima spoke in low, hushed tones. "Did you find something out, Saejima-san?" Hana asked.

"Nothing good, I'm afraid," he replied grimly as Dekkado deposited Samantha and Alexis on the loft's edge. "We haven't been able to find any foster homes that can take both girls, and because of the theft and break-ins, if the owners decide to press charges, Alexis will have to be sent to juvenile detention."

"No!" Samantha cried, wrapping her arms around her sister's waist. Alexis hugged her sister to her, fixing Saejima and Hana with a brutal glare. "You can't take us apart! 'Lexie was tryin' to take care of me!"

"Could we convince the owners not to press charges?" Hana suggested.

"If we could convince them, then both girls could be sent to the children's home, if not back to their family," he mused.

"We'd still be separated at a children's home," Alexis replied tartly, "and you can just kiss my ass if you think we're going back to her and whatever bar fly she's banging-"

"Alexis Roxanne…" Hana warned, using the teen's full name from the CPS records. She couldn't decide what bothered her more-the fifteen year old's coarse language, that Samantha didn't blink, or the fact that-

"It's true, Hana-san," Alexis answered.

"Whether or not you get sent back to your mother depends on what your reason was for running away," Saejima cut in.

"My sister and I have nothing to say to you," Alexis said, lifting her chin defiantly.

"You have a great deal to say to us, Alexis," Hana answered.

"I don't have anything to say to _your commissioner_, Hana-san," Alexis explained, nodding tartly to Saejima.

"Would you prefer talking to me, then?" Hana asked.

Alexis stared hardly at Hana; Hana kept her gaze gentle as she looked back at the delinquent youth, the pair sizing each other up. "I'll talk-but you have to swear that you won't send us back to-"

"If Commissioner Saejima-san agrees," Hana answered, looking over at him. The commissioner nodded, apparently trusting her judgment. Hana retrieved a portable recorder and tucked it under her arm. "We'll be in room three, down the hall."

"I wanna go to, 'Lexie!" Samantha cried, scrambling to follow her sister and Hana out.

"Sam, you have to stay here," Alexis said, gently squeezing her little sister's hands.

Samantha's eyes widened and grew glassy, her lower lip trembling. "But _'Lexie…_"

"Samantha-chama?" Dekkado asked gently, stepping up to the loft's edge. Having caught the little girl's attention, Dekkado offered her a warm smile. "I need help at my desk. Would you like to help me put some bad guys in jail?"

Swiping at her eyes, Samantha nodded, gathering her pink Dora the Explorer backpack and stepping onto Dekkado's hand. Dekkado smiled at her as he carried her over to his desk, allowing Alexis and Hana a discreet exit.

Hana led Alexis into the sparse interrogation room-a wood table, two chairs, and a windowed antechamber beyond-and let Alexis sit while she set up her recording equipment. "I hate you," Alexis said coldly as she watched Hana work.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," Hana said, flipping on the recorder and seating herself, "but hating me is certainly your right."

"I hope you're happy," Alexis added. "I'm probably gonna get my ass killed for telling you this-especially for letting you record it."

"We'll burn that bridge when we get to it, dear," Hana replied. "Now… tell me about your mother. Did she ever hit you or your sister?"

Sensing the futility in arguing, Alexis began her statement: "Mom's always hit us when she gets hammered." Her tone was cavalier on the surface, but so laced with pain.

"Where?" Hana prompted.

"The usual-slaps on the face, punches anywhere you can hide 'em," Alexis answered with a shrug. "She was smart enough to do that. Eventually, we both just laid back and took it-she hated rebellion."

"I imagine," Hana replied, even though she couldn't. "When did she start drinking?"

"When my dad died," Alexis explained. "Got worse after her cheap new boyfriend moved in with us about a year ago."

"And how did that go?" Hana asked, leaning forward and propping her elbows on the table.

"He was an ass," Alexis replied without hesitation. "Talked down to us all like we were stupid. Then there was the one the one night…" She paused, then pointed to the recorder. "Does all this have to go on the record?"

"It does," Hana replied gently. "This is evidence."

Rolling her flinty blue eyes, Alexis went on, "One night about a month ago, he came into my room and he pinned me down and started touching me, kissing me… tried to get his hand down my pajama pants."

Hana internalized her disgusted reaction. "And what happened then?"

"I defended myself," Alexis replied incredulously. "I head butted the fucker. It was just enough to get him off of me long enough for me to run into Sam's room and lock the door."

Hana nodded. "And did you tell your mom?"

"I tried," Alexis scoffed. "She said I was lying. I wasn't about to be the sicko's sex toy and started sneaking into Sam's room in the middle of the night and shared Sam's bed with her.

"Go on," Hana prompted, taking a few notes in a notebook she'd brought along to compound her recording.

"A few nights after he had come after me, Mom was out trying to get some drugs-"

"Let me interrupt you for one second, honey," Hana gently cut off. "What kind of drugs?"

"Shit if I know," Alexis replied with a shrug. "Pot, crack, LSD-if it'll get you high, she'll try it."

"I see," Hana replied grimly, making a note of that info. "Go on."

"Anyway, she left us home alone with him. When I was in the bathroom, he came into Sam's room and tried to grab her the same way he had grabbed me. When I came back he was trying to undress her, so I attacked him. Sam got away, but he pinned me against the wall."

"And what happened next?" Hana asked.

"He's kind of a dumb fuck, so I headbutted him and ran. He chased me into the kitchen and I knocked him out with an empty bottle of Jim Bean." She seemed oddly proud of this accomplishment. (Hana privately had to give the young teen credit for being able to wield a whiskey bottle as a weapon and still be alive.) "That's when I decided if Mom didn't give two shits about us and wasn't going to protect Sam, I was going to."

"And that's when you ran away?" Hana guessed.

Alexis nodded. "Still wanna send us back?" she challenged, arching an eyebrow.

Hana smiled as she turned off the tape recorder. "With her police record and this testimony, there's no way anyone with a heart could make you go back," she replied.

"Hope you're right," Alexis said quietly as Hana started to pack up.

"You must have a concrete block for a skull if you managed to head butt the guy," Hana joked as they started back for the Decker Room.

"My birth father started teaching me how to play soccer when I was four," Alexis replied casually. "I've been on a soccer team since the second grade. I've always been a good goalkeep so I've got a hard head."

"In more ways than one," Hana joked.

Alexis wasn't in a joking mood as she asked, "What about Sam and I? We're all the other one's got."

"Step one is seeing if we can convince the people from whom you stole to not press charges," Hana explained as they stepped back into the Decker room and got a lift on Shadow Maru's palm to Dekkado's desk, where Sam was drawing and Dekkado and Commissioner Saejima were talking.

As Sam showed her big sister her art work, Hana brought her superiors up to speed. "With all due respect, sirs," Hana finished, "sending them back to their mother is ethically and legally out of the question."

"The children's home-" Dekkado began.

"We'd still end up separated most of the time there," Alexis cut in, in no uncertain terms.

"What if they could find someone with whom they could stay?" Hana suggested. "Does it necessarily have to be a foster home?"

"For all intents and purposes, yes," Saejima replied, "but if they could find someone who would be willing to take them in and who could prove they would be taken care of, I might be able to pull some strings."

"But we don't have family nearby or any friends," Alexis pointed out.

"You've been doing a pretty good job of taking care of your sister so far," Hana mused, "so the person who takes you in wouldn't have to worry about doing much more than making sure you're in school, fed, clothed and such. As long as you don't mind sharing a room with your sister and taking care of her after school until I get home, you could stay with me until something else can be arranged."

"You would do that?" Alexis asked in awe.

Hana laid a hand on Alexis' shoulders and gently tilted her face up to meet her eyes. "You seem like a good kid, sweety," she reassured, " who's just had a rough life. There wasn't even a record on you before the crimes you've committed since you ran away, and they seem to have been strictly a way to survive." She paused to appeal to Dekkado and Commissioner Saejima. "If Dekkado-senpai and the Commissioner don't mind my saying so, but I would suggest that you deserve another chance, and all we have to do is convince the people from whom you stole to give you a second chance, too." Dekkado and Saejima nodded their agreement.

"Thank you," Alexis said, voice level but with tears rimming her eyes.

"Don't thank me yet," Hana reminded gently. "We still have to get approval for you to stay with me and convince the property owners not to press charges."

"I'll make some calls about getting approval for them to stay with you," Saejima replied. "You and Dekkado take Alexis to talk to the people she stole from-and take Samantha with you. If finding out the reason for the crimes isn't enough to convince them not to press charges, Samantha's presence should help sway them."

"Begging the Commissioner's pardon," Hana asked, bowing slightly, "but is it standard operating procedure to use little kids to manipulate people?"

Saejima grinned. "When the situation calls for it? Absolutely."


	7. Chapter 7

Yes, I'm finally updating, sorry it took so long, I've just got more plot bunnies than I can keep up with and life has been hectic.

If it's ever been a while since I've updated it might be a good idea to check my Deviantart account, which can be found through the home page link on my profile. Sometimes I post chapters there first and sometimes I post them here first, in this case I had posted chapters 7 and 8 on there months ago and didn't realize until today that I hadn't posted them on here yet.

* * *

Several hours later, Alexis' name had been fairly cleared of her theft-almost all of those from whom she stole agreed to look the other way, with the exception of one of the grocery stores. Though it took some doing, they agreed to hire Alexis as a stocker until her debt had been repaid.

"See, that wasn't so bad," Hana offered as they started back to the Decker Room after the fact.

"Ngh, whatever," Alexis replied with a shrug.

Slightly miffed by the teen's short answer, Hana opened the door and allowed her and Samantha to enter. While Samantha ran to the edge of Hana's loft to meet Dekkado, her sister close on her heels, Hana paused by her desk to talk to Saejima.

"Were you able to work anything out, Saejima-san?" Hana asked softly.

His serious countenance was broken by a half a smile. "They stay with you until their case goes to court. In the likelihood that their mother officially loses custody rights to them, a decision will be made about what to do with them after that."

"Thank goodness," Hana said with a sigh of relief. "At least that's one less thing to worry about for now."

"They've also been registered at the local school and are to report there in the morning," Saejima added, handing her two school supply lists, "with these supplies in hand."

"Ohh," Hana replied. She ran a mental tally of what the girls had that was suitable for school-precious little. "Commissioner, I'm afraid the girls don't have any proper clothes or supplies-"

"No worries-we have you covered." Hana turned in the direction of this new voice. A woman with bright red hair stood from her perch on Dumpson's hand. The female officer couldn't decide what was more curious-the presence of a new human in the Decker Room, or the fact that Dumpson seemed almost pleased with that human's presence.

Hana stared dumbly at the redhead, who was quickly joined by a brunette, who was deposited on Dumpson's desk by way of McCrane's hand. "That's right," the latter confirmed.

"Ahh… Not to be blatantly rude, but… who are you two exactly?" Hana asked as she found her voice. The pair were vaguely familiar to Hana, who had seem them come and go at what appeared to be their leisure, but she couldn't place their purpose. The frequent visits in and out of the building seemed to be for business-the brunette was a military officer, and it wasn't _totally_ outside the realm of possibility that the army was working with the police on something; the redhead on the other hand was never without a camera and a pencil and notepad, betraying her as a journalist.

The two women chuckled as Dumpson lifted them up onto the loft. "I'm Ayako," the redhead introduced, shaking Hana's hand before referring to her dark-haired counterpart. "This is Seia."

"We've known these boys for years," Seia added, "so when they told us about the girls, we thought they might enjoy a little shopping trip."

"Can we go?" Samantha asked Hana.

"May we, Hana-san?" Alexis asked softly.

"Of course," Hana agreed. "It sounds like a wonderful idea."

"Can I get a new dress?" Samantha asked with wide, hopeful eyes.

"Sweety, you can get whatever your little heart desires," Seia told her, kneeling to her eye level and stroking her hair.

"So who's gonna be a good boy and take us to the mall?" Ayako asked, looking directly at Dumpson, who had sat back down at his desk.

"Dekkado-senpai can be a good boy and take you to the mall," Dumpson replied without looking up from his work. "He's the only one with seats for five and enough trunk space for hundreds of dollars worth of girl crap."

"I second the motion because I dun wanna hear Dumpson whining about how long he had to sit waiting in the parking lot," Drill Boy added.

"Is it _my fault_ it takes her two hours to pick out a damn shirt?" Dumpson retorted. "You try sitting in a parking lot waiting that long-you would go stir crazy, too."

"World's Tiniest Violin, ladies and gentlemen," Gun Max interjected, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together.

"I didn't force you to take me," Ayako teased.

"You bribed him," Seia observed. "As I recall, you promised him a long, _looong_ walk on the beach if he agreed."

"He could have said no," Ayako dismissed. "Now are we going to the mall or are we going to stand around talking about it?"

"I'm still on duty," Hana said with a note of reservation, "but you could take the girls and I could meet you when I get off."

"I'm giving you a new assignment for the rest of the day, Hana-san," Dekkado cut in with a smile. "It would be best to have you with the girls when they're not at school." He pulled Hana aside slightly and quietly added, "We haven't been able to contact their mother to inform her of the situation; it would be best to have an officer with them, in case she happens to show up."

Hana nodded her agreement and understanding of her superior's logic. "Yes, sir."

By that evening, when the group returned to the station, Samantha and Alexis both had several school uniforms and each a small mountain of school supplies. While Dumpson and McCrane offered Ayako and Seia their rides home, Dekkado allowed Hana to load up his trunk and part of his backseat with the shopping bags and took them all home. By the time they got back, Samantha had fallen asleep in the back seat.

"You can leave her there so you don't have to wake her or carry her inside-I don't mind," Dekkado said when Alexis started to open the door to get her out.

"If she wakes up and doesn't know where I am, she'll pitch a fit," Alexis flatly denied.

"If you take her out and it doesn't wake her, I can hand her to you through the balcony door in your room," Dekkado suggested. "Then you won't have to try to carry her up the stairs."

"She's not that heavy," Alexis protested. "No one else handles her but me."

"It's okay," Hana reassured her. "He won't drop her; he's very gentle, even when pulling people out of burning buildings."

"Fine," Alexis relented. "But I stay out here in case she wakes up."

-  
_Several hours later…_

It was around one in the morning when Hana was woken by the sound of Samantha screaming, and shot out of bed to find out what was wrong. When she got to the girls' room a flat fifteen seconds later, her heart was pounding. "What's wrong? What happened?" Hana asked, looking around the room. It was empty, save for Alexis hugging her sobbing half-sister to her chest.

"I'm sorry she woke you, Hana-san," Alexis apologized.

"It's alright," Hana replied. "I can't fault her for-"

Dekkado pushed the balcony door open slightly. "Is everything okay?" he asked. "I heard Samantha-chan scream."

"She's had really bad nightmares," Alexis replied softly. "Ever since her dad died."

"Don't worry, Samantha," Hana consoled, sitting on the edge of the bed and stroking the young girl's head. "We won't let anything bad happen to you."

"Y-you promise?" Samantha asked, finally pulling her tear-streaked face away from Alexis's shoulder.

"As long as Hana-san and I are around, no one can or will hurt you," Dekkado added.

Samantha climbed over her sister's and Hana's laps and off the bed to stand on the balcony. The giant robot smiled warmly at her and brought his hand up to the stone floor, allowing her to climb onto it. "Can you sing me a lullaby?" she asked wiping a few last tears from her face.

"Of course, Samantha-chan," Dekkado replied. Very carefully, he sat down, cross-legged, in the driveway and began to sing to her.

"You should try to get some sleep," Hana said, turning to Alexis.

"What about Sam?" she asked, looking out toward the balcony.

"I'll take her and put her back in bed once she's calmed down and back asleep," Hana reassured.

Alexis shook her head. "I can stay up and do that."

"You have a big day tomorrow," Hana reminded. "First day at a new school-you need your rest."

"I'm very sorry about her waking you up," Alexis apologized again. "You aren't upset about it, are you?"

"Of course not," Hana replied. "You can't control your dreams or anyone else's. I can't fault her or you for something over which neither one of you have control."

"Damn, I wish our mom had thought like that," Alexis grumbled, drawing her legs up to her chest. "She'd hit Sam for waking her up with nightmares."

"I'm very sorry," Hana said sincerely. "…You said she's been having these nightmares since her dad died?"

"Yeah," Alexis confirmed. "You probably want details, huh?"

"They'd be nice," Hana replied. "If there's a trigger in those memories, I'll know what to avoid saying or doing to upset her."

Rolling her eyes, Alexis explained, "Mom and Sam's dad were trying to get some drugs from some dude-it was all happening in the living room when they thought we were asleep 'cos our room looked right into the living room and didn't have a door. They started fighting over price versus quantity and next thing we knew, the dealer pulled out a pistol and popped Nathan a few times. Sam saw everything."

Hana couldn't internalize the wince that distorted her features. "Don't worry about it anymore-you're safe now and I intend to make sure it stays that way."

"I hope it all works out," Alexis said darkly. "We can't go back to mom, but if we end up separated that would be worse."

"Don't worry about it tonight," Hana said gently. "We'll find a way to keep you two safe and together. Just worry about getting some sleep."

"Alright," Alexis agreed.

"Will you mind if I stayed here to take care of Sam?" Hana asked, referring to a rocking chair by the balcony.

Alexis shook her head before laying down to go back to sleep. "Good night, Hana-san."

"Good night," Hana replied as she sat in the rocking chair. A small smile crossed her face as she listened to Dekkado singing to Samantha. "Singing" was never something she'd expected a robot to be able to do well; then again, Dekkado was no ordinary robot. She felt herself dozing off until Dekkado stopped and softly called her name.

She looked over to see Dekkado holding out his hand, Samantha curled up asleep on his palm. Hana stepped out on to the balcony, took Samantha from him, carrying her back to the bed and tucking her in. Silently she gestured Dekkado toward her the balcony outside her room before stepping out.

When she returned to her room, she could vaguely see Dekkado's profile through the frosted glass doors of the balcony. "Thank you so much," she said sincerely, stepping out and sitting on the wide porch railing with her back against the wall. "I'm so glad you were able to calm her down."

"I've more than enough experience with calming kids after nightmares," Dekkado admitted with a wry chuckle. "Yuuta was just a child when he started working with me and would end up having nightmares after some of the more dangerous cases. He usually came to me, so I learned how to handle it."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I can't believe they let him work with you at that age," Hana said softly.

Dekkado dismissed the words with a wave of his hand. "I've heard worse," he replied vaguely. "I honestly think they just didn't know what else to do. All they knew at that time was that somehow… I had become sentient, and that Yuuta seemed to have a direct influence on that. They wanted to keep him around as much as possible until they could figure out what exactly had happened. When they were able to make the original Build Team sentient, everyone assumed they had figured it out."

"Not so much, huh?" Hana guessed.

"It's been years since the last time they had any success," Dekkado confirmed.

Hana weighed her next question carefully: "Hey, speaking of McCrane and Dumpson… what exactly lies between them and Seia and Ayako?"

Dekkado hesitated a moment not seeming completely sure of what to tell her.

"I prefer to think I'm a very tolerant person, sir," Hana said softly. "Whatever it is, I'm not going to freak out."

"If I may ask a question of my own, Hana-san?" Dekkado asked. Hana nodded her consent. "What makes you think there's anything between them all? They've known us since-"

"There's something about the way they would look at each other, the words they chose," Hana explained. "I've never seen McCrane smile like he did at Seia, and the way Ayako talks to Dumpson indicates the presence of something more than mere friendship."

Dekkado sighed. "You caught us," he told her. "Seia and McCrane have been married for just over two years-or rather, it's more of a domestic partnership. No one outside the Brave Police department knows about it, and for good reason-can you imagine the response to a human and a robot, sentient or no, wanting to marry?" Dekkado shook his head sadly. "Seia's entire family disowned her when they found out-except for her brother, who knew about us, and her mother, and even then it's still very clear she doesn't approve."

Hana bit her lip as Dekkado went on, "I've never seen McCrane lose so much sleep as he did the first six months of their engagement and mariage."

"I see," Hana said softly. "Ahh… what about Dumpson and Ayako? The same?"

"They've been together about as long as Seia and McCrane," Dekkado replied. "Dating very steadily, although I know around the time Seia and McCrane settled down, Dumpson was _toying_ with the idea of proposing, but after the mess with Seia's family he dropped the idea." He glanced down as a black alley cat walked up to him and started to rub its head against his foot. Lowering his hand, Dekkado let the cat climb on and lightly stroked its back with one finger.

"I never really thought about how difficult it must be sometimes for you guys," Hana murmured, "being so different from everyone else."

"Ahh, we usually don't let it bother us," Dekkado said, still petting his new feline friend. "We mostly concentrate on our work, though I don't think any of us hasn't had at least a few times we've wished we were human, or thought it would have been better if we had never become sentient."

"How do you handle that?" Hana asked, leaning forward.

"That's when we have to remind ourselves of the things we've faced that no human or normal AI robot could have handled. Knowing that we've saved lives that probably wouldn't have been saved otherwise is enough to keep us going."

Hana watched him for a second, then asked, "Hey, can you feel that? I mean you're so gentle, but you're made of metal."

"I can," he confirmed. "A lot more than just our minds have changed from the way we were built. According to Syunsuke-san, our 'medic' of sorts, we can feel things just as well as a human can."

"How does that work? Have you always been able to feel stuff like that?" Hana questioned, her awkwardness about the intimate information Dekkado had told her giving way to curiosity about her compatriots.

"We have nervous systems similar to humans, first and foremost, Dekkado began. "I don't remember if I could feel things at first. When I was first brought online, my outermost chassis hadn't been built. By the time they had finished that, however, I could feel things just as I do now. The others weren't brought online until their bodies had been completed, and they say that they gained the ability to feel shortly thereafter."

"So what if you lose a limb or something and it has to be replaced? I know I remember news reports where you had injuries like that."

"It's the original AI chip with which we were created that contains our souls," Dekkado explained. "As long as that survives intact and can be placed in a new body, we can survive anything. Once the AI chip is in the new body, it can change the body to have the exact same senses and alterations as in the old body; the same if we lose a limb-once it's replaced, it's adapted to be just like the old one. Syunsuke-san also forces us through monthly checkups-he has a current blueprint so that if we ever need our bodies or parts of them replaced, he can make the replacements as similar to the original as possible."

"Do you really change that much in just a month?" Hana asked in awe.

"Not really," he replied, "but that way, he'll notice as soon as any changes start and can see how they develop… most of the time at least."

"'Most of the time?'" Hana asked.

"Sometimes the changes are so subtle, it takes a while for anyone to notice them," he explained. "It wasn't until he noticed we weren't using as much fuel as months past that we realized we were getting energy from somewhere else; even then it took a couple of weeks before he found that we have microscopic solar panels in our heads."

"Seriously?" Hana interjected.

He nodded. "They're small enough to be inconspicuous, and there are enough of them to absorb enough energy so that as long as we're in the sun, we can go for days without gassing up."

"And what if you're hurt and can't be repaired right away? Can your bodies heal themselves like a humans would?"

"We think so," he answered, letting the alley cat run loose. "In situations where several of us have been injured, and the less severely injured ones have to wait to be repaired, it does appear that the injuries start to heal. It's too much of a risk to have any of us in less than fully functioning condition for an extended period of time so we're not sure just how much or how severe of damage can be healed without repair work."

Hana nodded, then to her embarrassment yawned. "You should go get some sleep," Dekkado observed.

"I guess you're right," Hana replied as she stood. "Good night, Dekkado."

"Good night, Hana-san," he said before stepping back and returning to vehicle mode for the rest of the evening.


	8. Chapter 8

_A few days later…_

Hana had, quite literally, just walked into the Deckerd Room when the phone started ringing. Dekkado answered it and, after a second of listening and tart nodding, replied, "We'll be right there."

"What's the damage, Dekkado?" Drill Boy asked

"There was an explosion downtown," Dekkado replied minimally. "An office building was damaged." As his crew rushed out, Dekkado held out his palm to allow Hana to climb on.

-

When they arrived at the scene, thick black smoke was pouring out of what was left of a large office building and the parking garage next to it; the latter had a large section blown out of the side of it. The remains of both the building and the garage were the textbook definition of a working fire, with several fire trucks working on containing it.

"What happened?" Hana asked another officer as she got out so Dekkado could change into his bipedal form.

"We're not sure," the other officer replied. "All we know is that there was an explosion near the office and there are probably a couple hundred people still in there."

Dekkado instantly took charge of the situation. "Drill Boy, Shadow Maru, Gun Max-check the roof and windows for survivors in the parts of the building that are still standing; the rest of you start clearing the rubble and looking for survivors down here."

Even with the robots ability to detect the heat signatures, it was still an exhausting, emotionally draining task. "How are you holding up?" Dekkado asked Hana an hour later, as she walked back over to him after helping a man they had just pulled out of the rubble to a paramedic.

"I'm looking forward to going home to a hot shower," Hana said, indicating the blood, dirt, dust and grime on her uniform and person, "but I'm holding up."

Dekkado nodded, then turned his head to another pile of debris. "I'm picking up another one under that slab of concrete." As he spoke, he lifted the stone and Hana carefully climbed through the smaller rubble until she spotted a hole down through some of it; she could hear what sounded like a child crying.

"Can you tell how far under they are?" Hana asked.

"About four feet down and eight feet back," he answered as he started pulling back more debris. "The debris is small enough that it will take about fifteen minutes to get through it." he told her as he carefully started to clear more of the debris.

"Sir, we don't have time for that!" Hana protested, fussing with the strap of her hard hat. "Listen to those cries-they're getting weaker. Is this tunnel open to where they are?"  
Dekkado looked at her dumbly for a second. "I suppose telling you how dangerous it is for you to go in there won't stop you, will it?"

"Not really," Hana replied.

"Fine," Dekkado conceded. "It looks like it goes through to the heat signature. Just be careful-I don't want to have to dig two people out of there."

"Fair enough," Hana agreed, dropping onto her hands and knees and crawling into the tunnel. It was a tight fit-only four feet high and three and a half feet wide, roughly-but Hana managed to slip through with only a few minor scrapes. As she got closer to the crying, she spotted a woman in her late thirties sitting, leaning against the wall, her face frozen in a grimace of pain, her last facial expression. Hana winced but forced herself forward until she could see around the woman's body and saw a small boy, no older than four, lying next to her.

"Hey little guy," Hana said gently, crawling closer. "I'm Hana; I'm with the police. What's your name?" As she spoke, she started to check his injuries, most of which seemed to be minor except for a deep cut on his arm and one of his legs that was stuck under a piece of cement.

"B… Ben," he told her, voice laced with pain.

"Okay Ben, I'm going to get you out of here," Hana told him as she pulled a roll of gauze out of her pocket and started to wrap the gash on his arm.

"My leg and my tummy hurt," he whimpered.

"I know, honey," she consoled, lifting up his T-shirt to assess the damage, minor bruising. "Do you think if I lift up the cement, you could get your leg out from under it?"

"I think so," Ben replied.

"Okay-as soon as I lift this up, try to pull your leg out, okay?" Hana told him as she lifted the piece of cement. It was massive, and too heavy for her to get more than a couple inches up, but it was enough for Ben to get his leg out.

"Good job, Ben," she congratulated. "Do you think you could hang onto my back while we crawl out of here?"

"I think so," he answered, "but my arm still hurts."

"Honey, there isn't enough room for me to carry you," she said gently as she undid the strap of her hardhat and set it on his head. "If you'd like for me to stop and let you rest your arm for a few minutes, I can do that."

"What about my mommy?" he asked, pointing to the woman's body. "She won't wake up; will you help get her out, too?"

"I'll send the best men we have back for her," Hana told him, unsure of how to tell him that his mother was beyond helping.

Hana laid down as best she could and let Ben climb onto her back then started to crawl out of the tunnel, making most of the trip on her elbows to keep Ben from scraping on the debris above them.

"Do you have any pets, Ben?" Hana asked, trying to keep him distracted from the pain.

"Yeah! I just got a puppy," he announced cheerfully. "His name's Mickey and he's a golden 'triever."

"That's awesome," Hana prompted, glad to hear the boy's voice in her ear.

"He can sit and I'm gonna teach him to fetch and roll over and do all kindsa tricks," Ben went on, then whimpered as his weight shifted and he had to hold on tighter with his injured arm.

Hana paused to let him get a better grip. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Hana asked as she started crawling again.

"I got a big sister and she likes to play tricks on me and pick on me," Ben said. "But she's not all bad. She scared off a kid who was being mean to me. Oh, and I have a baby brother, and when he's old enough I'm going to teach him how to tie his shoes, and the alphabet and how to count and when I get to go to school I'm going to teach him everything I learn so he'll be really smart. When I grow up I'm going to become a teacher so I can help make lots of people smart."

"You're going to be a great teacher, Ben," Hana reassured.

By the time they made it out of the tunnel and debris, Ben had become so weak he could barely hold on any more. "Are you alright?" Dekkado asked as soon as Hana emerged.

"I'm fine," she dismissed quickly, "but he's getting weaker. We need to get him to an ambulance." As carefully as she could, she shifted the boy's position to carrying him in her arms and started toward the medical hub of ambulances.

She had only gotten a few feet when she couldn't feel his breath on her neck. "Ben? Come on, Ben-don't give up now," Hana said, gentle but firm, as she laid him on the ground and unbuckled the hardhat, all but throwing it to the side as she started chest compressions and emergency breathing. She continued to talk to him as she counted off the chest compressions. "What about your little brother? And your puppy…?" The conversation wasn't returned, but she didn't stop.

After a few minutes, Dekkado gently cut in, "Hana… he's gone. There's nothing more you can do for him."

"Not on my life," Hana growled. "He's fine-he was talking to me on the way out."

"He has severe internal injuries." Hana looked up to see Shadow Maru retracting a scanning device into his helmet. "Even if you _had_ gotten him out sooner, there wouldn't have been anything that could have been done to save him."

"But… he's fine," she retorted weakly.

Dekkado rested a fingertip on her shoulder. "You did everything anyone could have," he consoled. "if anything you did more-he could have died down there, alone."

Hana looked down at Ben's still body, wanting to weep now more than ever. But now was not the time. "You're right," she conceded softly, standing. "There's still way too much to be done here."

"You can take a break if you'd like," Dekkado offered.

"I'm fine but thank you," Hana dismissed, kneeling to scoop up the little boy's form.

"Dekkado, I'm heading inside," Shadow Maru said as Hana took the boy to the ambulances, her face solemn. "A large section of the lobby and the rooms behind it are fairly intact so I can get through and there are several people in there."

"Okay, just be careful," Dekkado told him.

-  
_Several hours later… _

"Is that everyone?" Hana questioned, looking around the area. Things were certainly calmer than the mass chaos when she and the Brave Police had arrived.

"That's it," Dekkado confirmed.

"Looks like we took a few hits to our manpower," Hana observed, noting that the group of mechs seemed to have shrunk.

"McCrane, Power Joe and Shadow Maru were taken in for repairs," Dekkado answered. "McCrane was about to get flattened by a wall and Power Joe tried to shove him out the way-they both got pinned. Shadow Maru was stuck under a support beam trying to rescue a female trapped in the building." Finishing his report, Dekkado transformed and popped the door for Hana, allowing the young officer to climb in.

"So now we probably hit the office for paperwork, right?" she asked as they started to drive away.

"Not you, Hana," Dekkado replied. "Go home, get cleaned up and get some rest. You also have Alexis and Samantha-chan-they're probably worried about you."

"You really think so?" Hana said softly.

"They may have only been with you for a few days," Dekkado replied, merging onto the freeway that would lead to Hana's home, "but you're also their only real hope of staying together and safe. I'm sure they're very grateful for what you've done for them."


	9. Chapter 9

Hana shot up in bed, her heart racing and tears pouring down her face.

"Are you alright?"

Hana looked up to see Alexis standing in her doorway with Samantha just behind her, "I- I'm fine, it was just a nightmare." she replied, quickly wiping tears from her face.

"Who is Ben?" Samantha asked.

"What?"

"Before you woke up you kept crying and saying, don't die Ben." Samantha replied.

"You know the building that fell down that was on the news?" Hana asked.

"Yeah, I could see you helping someone to an ambulance behind the reporter before Lexy made me go do my homework." Samantha replied.

"Well, Ben was one of the people I tried to help there." Hana replied vaguely.

"Sam, why don't you go back to bed and I'll be right in." Alexis said.

"But-" Samantha started, but a stern look from Alexis had her running back to bed.

"That's the second time you've woken up like this tonight, he died didn't he?" Alexis asked once she was sure Samantha was out of earshot.

"Yeah, he was just a little boy, younger than Sam." Hana replied struggling to fight back tears for a second, "I'm sorry I woke you two." she said then got out of bed, "Do you think you could handle getting the two of you off to school in the morning?" she asked.

"Of course, why?" Alexis asked.

"Well I'm obviously not going to get any decent sleep tonight, I don't want to keep waking you two up and we still don't know what caused that explosion, but the investigators said it looked like a bomb, so I think I'll just head into the office early and see what evidence we have so far." Hana told her.

"We'll be fine, but it's only one in the morning can you even get into the office?" Alexis asked.

"Yep." Hana replied picking up a key off of her dresser, "No one else will probably be in the Decker room, but I have my own key so I'll at least be able to use my computer and access any of the reports that have already been put into the system." Hana said.

"Okay, well see you later then, good night." Alexis said.

"Good night." Hana said.

Hana silently slipped into the Decker room and started to walk over to her desk without bothering to turn the lights on.

"What are you doing here?" a disembodied voice asked as a pair of glowing eyes appeared in the robots part of the office.

"Do you know how creepy that looks?" Hana asked as she flipped on the light.

"Power Joe grinned at her, of course, that's why I was sitting in hear waiting for someone to come in and not turn the lights on." he replied from where he was sitting on his desk in a human sized body.

"You really just sit around all night just waiting to creep people out?" Hana asked.

"Well, not exactly, I can't sleep in this body, probably because I don't spend much time in it and it just doesn't feel right to me yet, so I'm stuck dieing of boredom waiting for my regular body to be repaired. So why are you here?" he asked.

"Pretty much the same, I couldn't sleep so I thought I would come down and see what we knew about the explosion yesterday." Hana replied.

"You're probably going to be disappointed then, all they've gotten into the system is the list of victims and the people who should have been in the building but haven't been found yet." Power Joe told her.

"Oh well, I can always start running background checks on the people who were in the building and see if I find anything useful." Hana said.

"That's a good idea I'll help- or maybe not." he said looking up at his giant robot sized computer.

"You could try just jumping from key to key." Hana suggested jokingly and received a less than amused look from him, "So I assume McCrane is with Seia, but where is Shadow Maru while he's stuck waiting for repairs?"

"Last I heard from him he had snuck into the hospital to hang out with that lady he got stuck in the ruble with. Apparently he went to visit her earlier and gave the girl his email address, after visiting hours and after everyone else was asleep she couldn't sleep because her leg hurt. She emailed him from her laptop and from what I've heard, he's snuck into the hospital room and hacked into her computer, they're sitting in the same room talking on instant messaging so they won't wake her mother who is sleeping in the same room. So I'm the only one really stuck dieing of boredom, although at least I wasn't as badly damaged and for the sake of having Super Build Tiger available I'm first in line for repairs." Power Joe told her.

"Wow, so does Shadow Maru always spend this much time with the people he rescues?" Hana asked.

"Nope." Power Joe said with a conspiratorial grin, "I'd say there's a good chance the bachelor bots club might be losing a member." he told her.

"What's this about losing a bachelor?" Syunsuke asked as he walked into the room.

"Shadow Maru is getting awfully friendly with that girl he rescued." Power Joe told him.

"Great, I'll have to have a talk with him." Syunsuke mumbled then said, "Well the repairs to your body are done."

"Excellent!" Power Joe said as he quickly climbed off of his desk, "See you in the morning." he called to Hana as he disappeared through the door.

Once he was gone Hana set to work looking through the list of people who had been in the building when it had blown up. She had been working for about fifteen minutes, checking to see if each of the people had criminal records when she came to Anna and Benjamin Jensen, Hana's heart broke all over again as she read over the information, Ben was only four years old although his fifth birthday was only a week away.

She finally pushed her chair away from the desk and pulled her feet up to rest on the front edge and buried her face against her knees as she started to cry. She knew she would have to deal with things like this and she had handled the site of bodies, even parts of bodies in the ruble just fine, but Ben's face haunted her. He had been so young, so full of life even as he was dieing, had had so many plans and in a split second his life had been cut short, all of his hopes and dreams left unfulfilled. She swore if they found out that the explosion had been caused by a bomb as was currently suspected, she would make sure whoever was responsible paid.

She was still curled up on the chair crying when she was suddenly scooped out of the chair and into a large hand.

She quickly tried to wipe the tears from her eyes then looked up, "Dekkado-san I-"

"Shhh, it's alright, just let it out, holding it in won't do you any good and neither will being alone." he told her as he sat down on the floor and leaned back against the wall under her loft then loosened his hands around her.

"But I shouldn't be breaking down like this, I knew when I joined that I'd have to deal with stuff like this, maybe I'm not strong enough for this job." Hana said turning so he couldn't see her face and leaning her back against his chest.

"You're doing just fine, I've seen rookies pass out at the site of blood and some of the most seasoned officers break down into tears after seeing a child die. The true strength you need for this job is to be able to push those emotions back until the crises is over, which you did quite well. I'd be more worried about you if it hadn't upset you this much." Dekkado told her, "I spent a lot of time out driving alone and feeling like I was over reacting after the first time I saw a child die."

"An apartment building was burning and we were called to the scene, I was the first one there. I was told they believed there was a family still in one of the second story apartments, but they couldn't get inside to check. With the heat of the fire I was unable to detect where any humans were inside the building, but then a little girl showed up pounding on one of the windows. I busted out the window and pulled her out along with her older sister who was unconscious. Before I could even get them to the ground the older girl died. There is nothing more painful than feeling a child's life slip away like that, such a young life, so full of possibilities just slipping away and no matter how much you want to you can't stop it. If you can get through that though, then you're more than strong enough to handle this job, witnessing a child die or feeling someone die in your hands will always hurt and no matter how many times it happens that hurt will never be any easier to bear, but if you can deal with it and go on working then you'll be fine. You can't face it alone though, after that girl died in my hands I became more and more depressed until the others noticed and finally cornered me and made me tell them what was wrong, after talking about it and having them remind me of all the good I had done and the fact that both of the girls would have died if I hadn't been there, I began to handle it better."

"There were a lot of people in that building today who could have died if you hadn't been there and Ben would have died buried under the ruble, scared and alone, I believe that would have been a far worse way to die."

"I know you're right, I-" she stopped, trying to fight back tears.

"It still hurts and you can't stop questioning whether there was something more you could have done?" Dekkado said.

"Yeah." Hana replied.

"There's nothing more you could have done. You'll pull through this, you're strong, you're a good officer, you'll be okay,"

"You really think so?" Hana asked turning to look up at his face.

"I'm sure of it." Dekkado replied, gently using a finger to brush a tear from her cheek then wrapped his hand around her, "You're staying here though, you shouldn't be alone after what you've been through." he told.

"Alright." Hana replied, leaning her head against him and fell asleep within a few minutes.

If it's ever been a while since I've updated it might be a good idea to check my Deviantart account, which can be found through the home page link on my profile. Sometimes I post chapters there first and sometimes I post them here first, in this case I had posted chapters 7 and 8 on there months ago and didn't realize until today that I hadn't posted them on here yet.


	10. Chapter 10

Hana woke up to, "Hana and Dekkado sitting in a tree-" a loud bang of metal against metal and Power Joe saying, "Ow, come on Shadow Maru, I was just having a little fun."

Hana opened her eyes in time to see Power Joe rubbing his head before he sat down at his desk, "Maybe you need to find a better way to have fun then." Dekkado told him as he set Hana into her loft.

Power Joe looked like he was about to say something, but then quickly stopped himself. From the look on his face Hana assumed Dekkado had just explained why she had ended up sleeping there, over their com link.

"So do we have any new information about how the building blew up?" Hana asked.

"It's still being investigated, but from the looks of it, someone planted a car bomb in the underground parking lot." Shadow Maru told her.

"What about the second explosion?" Dekkado asked.

"It looks like it was hidden in a janitors closet, it could be that someone was targeting the whole building or the second bomb was set up to make us think that." Shadow Maru replied.

"To keep us from focusing too much on who the real target was." Hana said.

"Exactly." Shadow Maru replied.

"Can we find out who the car belonged to?" Dekkado asked.

"It might not be easy, who ever made the bomb went over board with it, which is why there was so much damage to the building and there's not much left to tell us which car the bomb was on. It looks like the bomb pretty much shredded five cars that were sitting close to each other and scattered them all over the place." Shadow Maru told them.

"What about security cameras?" Dekkado asked.

"There were some, but no one is sure if the video survived the blast or not." Shadow Maru replied.

"Alright, McCrane, you and the rest of the Build Team head back to the site and see if you can help speed things up with finding out if the security video survived. Shadow Maru and I will remain here and go over the rest of the people who were in the building and see if any of them have records that might suggest a motive for someone wanting them dead badly enough to do something like this." Dekkado said.

"What about me?" Hana asked.

"You are going to go get yourself some breakfast and then you can help with the background checks." Dekkado told her.

Several hours later the Build Team returned, "We found the security footage and license plate numbers for all five of the cars that were closest to the bomb." McCrane announced.

"Good work, lets get those plate numbers run and see who owned the cars." Dekkado said.

"There's nothing here, a couple speeding tickets and a DUI from ten years ago, nothing to indicate any of these people were into anything that would have someone trying to kill them." Hana said a while later.

"Hana and I will go talk to these people and see if they can tell why someone wanted them dead. The rest of you stay here and go over the security footage and see if you can find the person who placed the bomb." Dekkado said.

Several hours later Dekkado pulled into the hospital parking lot, "Well this is the last one, hopefully he can shed some light on this case." Hana said as she got out.

"Good luck." Dekkado said.

"Thanks." Hana said before heading into the hospital.

After finding out what room the man was in and that he was in good enough condition to talk to her, she headed to his room. When she got there a man was sitting outside of his door.

"Can I help you?" the man asked when she approached the room.

"I'm detective Ichimira, I'm investigating yesterdays bombing, I need to talk to Mr. Bennet." Hana replied showing him her badge.

"One moment please." the man said pulling out a cell phone and stepping into the room and shut the door.

A moment later he came back out, "Alright, you're cleared to go in, Mr. Bennet said he'd talk to you." he told her.

Hana stepped into the room to find Mr. Bennet with full casts on his right arm and leg, "Peter Bennet?" Hana asked.

"Yes ma'am, what can I do to help you?" he asked.

"I'm detective Hana Ichimira, I'm here investigating the bombing yesterday. According to what we've found so far the first explosion was a car bomb that may have been placed on your car. Do you know of any reason someone might go to such extreme measures to kill you?" Hana asked.

"I know exactly why they came after me. About a week ago I was working late, I decided to go to the restaurant down the street to get some coffee, on the way back I heard fighting in an ally. There were five men, three of them were beating the shit out of the other two then the one man told the other two to finish the guys off and they shot the two guys. One of them went down and stayed down the other managed to get up and make a run for it, the guy giving the orders pulled out a gun and shot him right through the head. One of the thugs noticed me and I hightailed it back to the restaurant and called the police. The guys had been right near a light making it easy to identify them, turns out the one giving orders is believed to be the leader of a gang that's been causing a lot of trouble, stealing, drugs, running a protection racket and according rumors anyone who crosses him ends up dead. He maybe in jail, but apparently he managed to figure out who I am and sent some one after me so I wouldn't be able to testify at the trial next week." Mr. Bennet told her.

"You said he figured out who you are, you mean he never got a good look at you to be able to identify you and come after you?" Hana asked.

"There's no way he could have, it was dark where I was, there was no way they could have seen anything more than an outline. That's why I went back to work even though the police told me I should go into protective custody until the trial. I was sure there was no way he could find out who I was and if I stopped showing up to work he might somehow figure out it was me and go after my family. I never would have gone back to work if I thought there was any chance he could find out who I was. I never should have gone back to work and I never should have sent my assistant down to get my briefcase out of my car, I should have been the one to get it."

"No, if you had been killed a criminal could have gone free to kill again. Our big problem now is finding out how these people found out who you are. Who all knew about this?" Hana asked.

"Just the cops I talked to, they said we needed to make sure as few people knew about it as possible to keep me safe."

"Then there had to be a leak." Hana said.

"You mean one of the cops?" Mr. Bennet asked.

"It's the only way he could have found out who you are if he really never had a chance to identify you." Hana replied.

"So it could be any of the guys who are supposed to be protecting me? It could be the guy sitting out side my door or any of the other guys who are supposed to be protecting me and there's no way to know for sure?" he asked, an edge of panic becoming more apparent in his voice.

"Yes it could be anyone, but I think I know how to find out who it is and I'll stay here with you until we know you're safe." Hana assured him as she pulled out her phone and called Dekkado, "We have a situation here, Shadow Maru has a built in lie detector doesn't he?"

"Yes, why, what's going on?" Dekkado asked.

"I've got our target, he's a witness to a crime and it would seem one of the cops working on the case leaked some information that resulted in the bombing. I think the fastest way to find the leak would be to have Shadow Maru question everyone involved with the case and see if his lie detector can find them, plus I'd like him to question the guard before I leave Mr. Bennet alone." Hana explained.

After a brief pause Dekkado said, "Alright, Shadow Maru is on his way. Give me the case info and I'll contact the commissioner and have him round up everyone involved with it."

By that evening the leak had been found, arrested and had admitted to being paid a large sum of money for the information and Gun Max had been posted as a back up guard at the hospital, just incase there was any more trouble.

"Well sounds like you guys had a long day." Dumpson said as Dekkado, Shadow Maru and Hana walked into the office

"Yeah, I'm ready to go home and collapse at this point." Hana said, then asked, "Any news from you guys today?"

"Yep, it's even all good news." Dumpson replied, "We found the bomber in the security footage, identified him and arrested him. Shadow Maru will be questioning him in the morning, it usually doesn't take him very long to get people to tell him what he wants to know since they can't lie to him without him knowing. We also got word that Alexis and Sam's mother and boyfriend have been found and she's been told that the girls are being taken care of until a trail can be arranged, although from what the arresting officer said they were probably too high to remember it tomorrow. They found them in an apartment with three other people, all of them were so drugged up they were barely conscious and one of them had overdosed and was dead. I don't think there will be any problem with taking custody of the girls away from their mother."

"Good, at least that's one less thing for me to worry about. Now we just have to make sure they stay together after the trial." Hana said.

"We'll worry about that when the time comes, right now you've had a long day and need to get home and get some rest." Dekkado told Hana.

Hana looked like she was about to argue for a second until Drill Boy said, "Not to mention you need tell Alexis you're alright, she called me three times today asking if you were alright."

"Okay, I'll go home." Hana relented.


	11. Chapter 11

Finally updating, here's a nice long chapter to make up for not updating in so long. If anyone is interested I'm having a Brave Police contest check out my group Brave-Police-Central on Deviantart for the basic rules, there will be several great prizes.

* * *

Over the next few weeks Hana grew very attached to Alexis and Samantha and they seemed to become attached to her as well. Alexis' hard exterior had softened to reveal that even after all the hardships she had been through in her young life she was a very caring young woman towards everyone and not just her sister. Once she accepted that Hana wanted nothing but to help her and Samantha she even left Samantha alone with Hana when Drill Boy, using his human sized body had challenged her to a soccer match. It had become common for Hana to wake up to find a note from Alexis saying that she was at the soccer field with Drill Boy and would be home in time to get Samantha ready for school.

It had never bothered Hana before, but this particular morning she was less than pleased to wake up and find Alexis missing. They only had an hour until they had to be at court and there was no sign of her.

"Have you been able to get a hold of Brill Boy?" Hana asked over her radio.

"No, last I heard from him he was complaining about not being able to be in the courtroom with Alexis, that was last night and I haven't been able to get a hold of him since." Dekkado told her, "Wait, I still don't know where Drill Boy is, but Alexis just walked into the office, we'll be there to pick you and Sam up shortly."

"Thank goodness, see you soon." Hana said before going to make sure Samantha was ready to go.

Luckily the rest of the day went by smoothly, Alexis and Samantha's mother lost all custody and after hearing from the girls, Hana, the commissioner, Syunsuke, Seia, Ayako and a number of other people who knew Hana, the judge allowed Alexis and Samantha to stay with her.

As they left the court house Hana asked, "What do you have in your pocket? You've spent the whole day holding Sam's hand with one hand and kept the other hand in you're pocket. Do you have some type of lucky charm in there?"

Syunsuke chuckled and Alexis grinned, "Sort of." she replied pulling her hand of her pocket and opening it to reveal Drill Boy who was no bigger than a toy.

"Oh my gosh, is that really you?" Hana asked.

"Yes, now next stop back to the station please." Drill Boy practically begged.

"Why?" Hana asked.

"Because he hates that body and only used it out of desperation because Alexis was nervous about the trial and it was the only way he could be in there with her to support her." Syunsuke replied, "He and Dumpson had a less than pleasant experience while in those bodies, which lead to them no longer being used, it was a miracle it was even still in working condition."

"Oh that sounds like a good story, you've got to tell me about it." Hana said.

"Absolutely not, we got lost and nearly died before being found, that's all you need to know." Dumpson said a hint of what sounded like embarrassment in his voice.

"Oh but it's such a good story and so funny." Ayako said.

"Why on earth did I ever tell you about it?" Dumpson said obviously regretting it.

"Because I know how to get you to tell me anything." Ayako said as she climbed in, lightly running her hand over his dashboard and wheel, making Dumpson shudder slightly.

"Oh yeah, that's why." he practically purred.

"Come on you two, get a room, my little sister doesn't need to see this." Alexis said.

"That's not a bad idea." Dumpson said before quickly driving away.

"Okay. Well how would you two like to go out for ice cream to celebrate?" Hana asked the girls.

"Yay! Ice cream!" Samantha cheered.

"I guess that's a yes, you don't mind making an extra stop on the way home do you?" she asked Dekkado.

"Of course not." he replied opening the doors for them.

Alexis was watching the news with Hana a few days later when a story came on about the Build Team, "Man that has to be impressive to see in real life." she said.

"What?" Hana asked.

"Them all combining into that huge robot, I mean they're already so big, I'd love to see that in real life and not just on TV. You're so lucky getting to work with them." she replied.

"Well, you know guys always like showing off, especially the Build Team, I'm sure I could convince them to give you a demonstration." Hana told her.

"Really?" Alexis asked grinning.

"Sure, maybe this weekend, they've been talking about wanting to get you girls out of town for a while now. They said there's a nice secluded place outside of town where they go for picnics sometimes and they thought you might like it out there and there's a soccer field nearby. Seia asked me this afternoon if you might want to go out there this weekend." Hana told her.

"That sounds great." Alexis replied.

That weekend everyone met for the picnic, all of the Brave Police as well as Seia, Ayako, Hana and the girls.

Once they had all gotten there and had things set up Hana asked the Build Team, "So, would you guys mind showing off a bit for us?"

"What exactly did you have in mind?" Dumpson asked.

"Alexis saw you on the news and thought you were so impressive that she wants to see you combine into Super Build Tiger in person." Hana told him.

"Well we certainly can't turn down a request to show off how awesome we are." Power Joe replied.

"Yep, anything for a pretty girl." Drill Boy said smiling at Alexis before stepping back a ways with the rest of the Build Team so they could combine.

A moment later they combined and did a few poses to show off.

"What do you think? Pretty impressive aren't we?" Drill Boy asked.

"Very, you're huge and just awso- oh good God." Alexis exclaimed.

"What? What's wrong?" Drill Boy asked.

"Sam honey, why don't you go pick some flowers for Hana over there." Alexis suggested, pointing towards some wildflowers growing along a wooded area a good distance away, but still within sight of the others.

"Okay." Samantha replied before running off.

"Come on, what's up?" Drill Boy asked.

"Well from the sound of where your voice is coming from you have you head in that giant robots crotch, do you realize how sick and twisted that is?" Alexis said looking torn between being seriously disturbed or laughing about it.

"Oh my gosh, I never noticed that before." Hana said, laughing.

"That's not funny." Drill Boy said as he and the rest of the Build Team separated.

"Sure it is, in a twisted sort of way. Sure makes me glad I just combine as a gun and not part of a larger robot." Gun Max said.

"It really is just so wrong that your head is down there." Alexis said.

"Yeah, McCrane's head is down there too, I often wonder what Saejima and Syunsuke were thinking when they designed these guys" Seia said.

"It could be worse." McCrane said.

"How can it get any worse than having your head in the crotch of a giant robot?" Alexis asked.

"Could be like Shadow Maru and have windows down there." McCrane replied.

"I don't know about that, it's not like we have anything to hide down there, personally I think you have it worse off." Shadow Maru replied.

"You may just change your mind about that someday." Dumpson said.

"What makes you think that?" Shadow Maru asked.

"Nothing, he's just trying to be annoying." McCrane said as Samantha ran back to Hana and handed her a bouquet of flowers.

A little while later Hana noticed Drill Boy laying down with his helmet off and Seia pulling his AI chip out with some type of tool, "What are you doing?" Hana asked.

"He want's to be able to play soccer with Alexis, we're just switching him to his human sized body." Ayako replied as she carefully took the tool and AI chip from Seia and put it into Drill Boy's human sized body.

"You can do that, I thought Syunsuke had to be the one t do it."

"No, it's not that hard with the right tools once you know what you're doing, we've been doing it for years." Seia said as she climbed down.

"They've certainly become close." Seia said a little while later as she and Hana watched Alexis and Drill Boy playing soccer.

"Yes they have, I think Drill Boy has really helped with getting Alexis to come out of her shell these last few weeks." Hana said, "Do you think there's more going on here than just a shared love of soccer?" she asked.

"I'd say it's entirely possible." Seia replied as Samantha ran out onto the field and Drill Boy and Alexis started showing her how to play.

"After what she's seen of human men it wouldn't surprise me at all if those two ended up together." Ayako said.

Hana had gotten to work early on Monday and was sitting at her desk when Drill Boy came in and started pacing across the room, he seemed to be so distracted that he didn't even notice her.

"Is everything alright?" Hana finally asked making him jump.

"Of course, why would you think anything was wrong?" Drill Boy asked sounding almost nervous.

"Well you're pacing around here like a caged animal, you didn't even notice I was here and you sound nervous about something." Hana told him.

"It's nothing." Drill Boy told her.

"Sure, that's why you look so freaked out." Hana said crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow.

"It's just, it doesn't make any sense." he replied.

"What doesn't make any sense?" McCrane asked as he and Dumpson came into the room.

"Nothing." Drill Boy replied.

Dumpson looked expectantly at Hana and she just raised her hands, "I don't know any more than you do, he wouldn't tell me anything. All I know is he came in here, started pacing and didn't even realize I was in here until I said something to him." she told him.

"Alright what's bothering you? And don't try telling us it's nothing." Dumpson said as he backed Drill Boy into a corner and McCrane joined him, blocking any chance of Drill Boy escaping.

Drill Boy looked for a way to escape for a moment then let out a defeated sigh.

Hana sat down at her desk as she watched their faces when she realized they were communicating over their private com system. They didn't use it very often, but when they did it drove her crazy not knowing what was being said.

Dumpson suddenly burst out laughing while McCrane looked like he was having a hard time keeping him self from doing the same.

"What's so funny? This makes no sense, everything else that has changed makes sense in some way, but this just doesn't. It doesn't seem to have any purpose or be useful for anything." Drill Boy said looking angrily at them.

"So who is she?" Dumpson asked still grinning.

"Who's who?" Drill Boy asked looking confused.

"If you can't figure that out for your self you're a poor excuse for a detective." McCrane told Dumpson.

"I guess you're right, there aren't many possibilities are there?" Dumpson replied.

"Would someone mind telling me what's going on here?" Hana finally asked.

"He's just getting balls and I don't mean the ones that pop out of his chest." Dumpson replied.

It took Hana a second to figure out what he meant and when she did she looked at him in shock and asked, "What? But he's a robot, how can that be possible?"

"Has anyone ever told you about how our bodies have changed since we were built?" McCrane asked.

"Feeling, full circulatory systems and solar energy absorbers, yes, but I've never heard anything like this." Hana replied.

"Neither have I." Drill Boy said.

"Of course you haven't, this particular change has been kept between Syunsuke, Seia, Ayako, Dumpson and I, no one else knows because it only happens to those of us who fall in love with human women." McCrane explained.

"Basically we're fully capable of pleasing a human woman with in a few months of falling in love, of course it takes a bit longer if we don't spend much time in the properly sized bodies. That's one of the few things that are completely useless in a body this size." Dumpson said.

"You're serious, we can really do that?" Drill Boy asked.

"Yep, so it's Alexis isn't it?" Dumpson asked.

"Uh, yeah, we've kind of been dating for about a week and a half now." Drill Boy admitted a little uncomfortably.

"Drill Boy, come here a minute." Hana said as she walked over to the edge of her part of the room.

"What?" Drill Boy asked when he got over to her.

"Come down here." she said.

When he was at eye level with her Hana grabbed him by the drill ends on either side of his face and said, "If you try anything with her involving this new development unless there's a wedding first, I will personally cut it off, understand?"

"Yes, ma'am." Drill Boy said sounding a little scared.

"And I'll pin you down while she does it." Dumpson said.

"Why would you care?" Drill Boy asked.

"Because it's disrespectful to do that before committing yourself to her and it would reflect badly on the entire team if something like that were to happen and anyone found out." Dumpson replied.

"You're such a hypocrite! You've probably made love to Ayako countless times, that's probably what you were doing that day I came to tell you about the emergency meeting a few months ago and you were in your human sized body practically over heating and Ayako was only half dressed. So what, you don't care if the team looks bad because of something you do, but I can't do the same thing? And if not having sex until after marriage is a sign of respect then you must have no respect for Ayako at all, do you even love her or-."

Drill Boy was suddenly cut off as Dumpson grabbed him by the throat and pinned him against the wall, "I love and respect her more than anything else in this world." he said then lowering his voice added, "and I did marry her before I laid a hand on her."

Behind him McCrane loudly cleared his throat, "Okay before I even thought about trying to get any farther than second base." Dumpson somewhat reluctantly admitted, "But Alexis is only sixteen and you won't even attempt to get that far or you're getting neutered." he said threateningly.

"Alright, alright, I never really had any intention of trying anything like that anyways. Now since when have you and Ayako been married and why weren't any of us told about it?" Drill Boy asked.

"Because I asked her to marry me the same day that Seia found out almost her entire family had disowned her. If we had gotten there before she told everyone about that then everyone would have known, but after hearing about how her family had reacted I wanted to just call of the engagement completely, I couldn't bear seeing Ayako go through the same thing. Ayako on the other hand refused to give up so easily and we finally came to a compromise, we would get married, but would never tell anyone so there was no chance of her family finding out. Seia and McCrane are the only ones who knew and our witnesses when we exchanged vows." Dumpson explained, "And you two are never to breath a word of this to anyone." he said eyeing Hana and Drill Boy.

"No problem." Hana replied.

"Yeah, I wouldn't dream of telling anyone, you've already threatened to neuter me, I don't want to find out what you'd do to me if I told anyone." Drill Boy said.

"Good." Dumpson said starting to loosen his grip from Drill Boy's neck.

"What are you doing to him?" Dekkado asked as he stepped into the office and Dumpson swiftly pulled his hand away from Drill Boy.

"Nothing." Dumpson replied walking over to his desk.

Dekkado glanced around the room at each of the others who avoided eye contact and busied themselves around the room, "Alright, what's going on?" he said as his gaze finally landed on Hana.

"It's nothing to worry about, Dumpson was just giving Drill Boy some dating advice." Hana replied.

Dekkado smiled, "Alexis I take it?" he asked.

"Yep, they do make a nice couple don't they?" Hana said.

"Yes, they do." Dekkado replied.


	12. Chapter 12

This chapter and the next one will pretty much just be several scenes that I had planned and gave up on filling in between before getting to the next big case and action that I've had mostly written since right after I started writing this.

* * *

Over the next few weeks things were fairly quite, the weekends spent with most of the Brave Police force using their human sized bodies and going to Hana's house to redecorate Alexis and Samantha's room. The Build team built most of the furniture for the girls, each of the them got their own bed, Samantha got a bunk bed with a bed on top and her own private club house underneath complete with windows and a door, Alexis got a nice desk and her own laptop computer that Hana, Ayako, Seia and Saejima had all chipped in to get for her.

A pole had been put in that ran from one end of the room to the other with a curtain hung on it that could be left open or shut if Alexis wanted some privacy. Samantha had been so excited about her knew bed that she slept in it the first night, giving Alexis a chance to have a bed to herself for the first time since they had come to stay with Hana.

On that morning when Hana got the girls up Samantha looked more bleary-eyed than usual and barely touched her breakfast, "Are you feeling okay, honey?" Hana asked.

"My tummy hurts and I'm tired." Samantha replied picking at her food.

Hana walked over and felt her forehead then got a thermometer, "Looks like you've got a fever." she said a few minutes later, "I don't think you'll be going to school today."

"I can stay home and watch her." Alexis offered.

"No, I don't want you missing school. I'm sure Dekkado will understand and give me the day off." Hana replied as she picked up the phone and walked out of the room.

"How would you like to go to work with me?" Hana asked a few minutes later as she walked back into the kitchen.

"They'll let you bring her to work with you?" Alexis asked.

"Yeah, Dekkado said he thought it would be a better idea if she's up to it than leaving me stuck in the house with her all day. He said they'd all be glad to help keep an eye on her and none of them have to worry about getting sick if it's something contagious. Plus they think they've located a criminal we've been looking for which means they need me there to make the arrest. One of them will stay with her at all times and they'll move one of the beds into the office from one of the human break rooms for her." Hana replied, "If you'd rather stay here we can, so do you think you're up to it?" she asked Samantha.

Samantha grinned at her, "I get to spend all day with the Brave Police?" she asked.

"Yep." Hana replied.

"I'll be fine, I know they'll make me feel better." Samantha told her.

About an hour after Hana arrived at the office Gun Max had been nominated as babysitter while Hana and Dekkado left to make their arrest and everyone else left on patrol.

Once they got back Hana started to open the door to go into the Deckerd room then stopped when she heard a high-pitched voice discussing what dress was the prettiest. She quickly, but quietly shut the door then raced down the hall, getting to the other door just as Dekkado was reaching for the handle.

"Be very quite opening the door." she told him barely above a whisper.

"Why?" Dekkado asked picking her up.

"You'll see. You have a built in video camera, right?" she asked.

"Yes." Dekkado replied.

"Have it running, I have a feeling we're going to want to share this." she told him.

A second later he opened the door and watched silently as Gun Max sat at his desk with Samantha sitting on it playing with her Barbies, complete with Gun Max doing different voices for each of the two he was playing with.

After nearly five minutes Samantha told Gun Max that the Barbies were going to start a band and one of the Barbies he had was going to be the singer. A moment later after Samantha had told him what song to sing, Gun Max started having the Barbie sing complete with his high-pitched attempt at a feminine sounding voice, causing Hana to start laughing so hard she nearly fell off of Dekkado's hand. Dekkado luckily managed to keep Hana from falling while struggling to get his own laughter under control.

Gun Max jumped to his feet, shocked and turning a deeper shade of red than Hana had ever imagined possible for a robot, "She was bored and insisted I had to play with her and I- well look at that face, how could I say no?' Gun Max asked.

"Oh you can't and you do such a great Barbie voice." Hana replied grinning at him as Dekkado set her down, "You're really great with her and being able to keep a sick child happy is nothing to be embarrassed about, even if it does get you picked on a little." she added more seriously.

That evening Samantha begged Dekkado to take her home and as Gun Max had said there was no saying no to her, especially when she was sick. As Hana was getting Samantha into bed she slipped away and ran out onto the balcony.

"Could you sing me a lullaby?" Samantha asked Dekkado who was still sitting in the driveway.

"I suppose I could." he replied as he transformed and held his hand up for her to climb into.

As he began to sing to her she climbed up so she could lay her head on his shoulder and started to doze off. Several minutes later just as he was finishing the song Samantha's head shot up, Hana realized what was happening, but didn't have time to warn Dekkado before Samantha threw up all over his shoulder and down his back.

Dekkado barely even grimaced as the warm liquid ran down his back, Samantha on the other hand looked completely freaked out and a little scared, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I'm really sorry." she said on the verge of tears as she cringed back into Dekkado's hand.

"It's alright, you couldn't help it, you have nothing to be sorry for." Dekkado assured her.

"Mom would beat us for throwing up and make us clean it up." Alexis said from where she was standing on the balcony with Hana.

"I mean no disrespect if she deserves any, but your mother was a monster." Hana said.

Alexis grinned at her, "She doesn't deserve any respect and I couldn't agree with you more."

A little while later after getting Samantha calmed down and into bed Hana stepped out of the garage with a hose, "You want some help getting that off your back before you leave?" she asked.

"That would be wonderful." Dekkado replied as he sat down and Hana began to wash the puke off of his back.

A few days later Samantha had fully recovered, but Hana's car wasn't doing so well, having gotten the windshield broken when a neighbor had mowed over a rock. So Dekkado was taking Hana to work and back home until it was fixed.

"How are they doing?" Dekkado asked as Hana hung up the phone from talking to Alexis.

"Alexis says to take our time getting home, she burned dinner and doesn't want me to come home until she has something else made." Hana replied, "Sometimes it's hard to believe what a rough life she came from, she's strong and independent, yet also so sweet, caring and willing to do so much to help out. I told her I could come straight home and help her make something, but she insists that I've been working all day, her homework is already done and she wants to have dinner ready when I get there."

"You're right, it is amazing that she turned out so well after what she's been through." Dekkado agreed, "Since you've got some extra time before you need to go home would you like to help me drop some things off at the orphanage?" he asked setting a couple boxes of donated clothing and toys on the edge her loft.

"Sure, I'd love to." Hana replied.

A little while later they pulled up in front of a huge old house with several children playing in the fenced in yard.

As soon as Dekkado transformed a little girl who looked to be about eleven ran over and climbed up the chain link gate then jumped off the top of it into Dekkado's hands, "What did you bring me this time?" she asked grinning at him.

"Who says I brought you anything?" Dekkado asked her.

"You always do." the girl replied.

"Oh, well I guess I can't argue with that." Dekkado replied glancing to make sure none of the other kids were paying too much attention to them then slipped a small bite sized Hershey bar to her which she promptly unwrapped and ate.

"You're the best." she said, hugging him.

"You're not spoiling her again are you?" a woman asked as she came out of the house.

"Of course not, I'd never do that." Dekkado replied, sharing a conspiratorial grin the girl.

"I'm sure you wouldn't." the woman said then looked at Hana, "Who is this?" she asked.

"This Hana, my new partner, Hana this is Mrs. Shinsetsu and this little angel is Cindy." Dekkado introduced.

"It's a pleasure to meet both of you." Hana said as Mrs. Shinsetsu unlocked the gate and helped Hana carry the boxes of stuff into the house.

"I take it he comes here fairly regularly?" Hana said as they stepped back out onto the porch and she noticed Dekkado sitting in the yard surrounded by the kids.

"Yes, ever since Cindy was brought here several years ago he's out here at least once a week. He's the only reason Cindy is alive, he pulled her out of a burning building." Mrs. Shinsetsu told her.

"She's the one who's sister died in his hands, isn't she?" Hana asked.

"Yes, I'm surprised he told you about that, he still doesn't like to talk about it." Mrs. Shinsetsu replied.

"I lost my first child on the job and was having a hard time dealing with it, that's when he told me." Hana told her.

"I don't think I could ever handle what you do, fighting crime, dealing with violence and death. It takes all my strength just to handle hearing what some of these kids have been through." Mrs. Shinsetsu said.

"It's not easy, sometimes I have to just focus on the good we're accomplishing to get me through the tough times." Hana replied.

"Like rescuing those two girls and keeping them together?" Mrs. Shinsetsu asked.

"Exactly." Hana replied.

"Are the kids ever going to let him leave?" Hana asked twenty minutes later as the kids continued to play with Dekkado.

"Usually no, but they'll be letting him go in just a second." Mrs. Shinsetsu replied as another woman stepped out onto the porch.

A moment later she rang a dinner bell and all the kids quickly said good bye to Dekkado and headed into the house, except for Cindy who stayed by Dekkado's side until he picked her up and carried her up to the house.

"You'll come back and see me real soon won't you?" Cindy asked.

"Of course I will." Dekkado replied as he almost reluctantly set her down on the porch and watched her until she disappeared into the house.

The next month flew by and before they knew it, it was time for Yuuta to return, something that Hana was dreading since she had only been assigned to work with the Brave Police until he returned. She had become so close to all of them that she couldn't imagine not working with them.

When she walked into the Deckerd room a large banner had been hung across the far wall that read, 'Welcome back Yuuta' there were a number of decorations and Seia, Ayako and Yuuta's sisters were setting up a table with cake and punch.

Hana silently walked over to her desk, or at least it would be hers for another hour or so and sat down quietly going about her usual morning work.

"What's wrong?" Dekkado asked a few minutes later as he walked up to the edge of her loft.

"Nothing." Hana replied, not wanting to bring up her insecurities about no longer working with them when they were all so happy about Yuuta's return.

"You're lying." Shadow Maru said as he joined Dekkado.

"How about the truth this time?" Dekkado asked.

"Sometimes I hate your lie detector." Hana told Shadow Maru.

"Well at least you're being honest now." Shadow Maru replied, "So what's bothering you?"

"It's nothing really, I just know that I was only assigned to work with you guys until Yuuta came back. I'm a little nervous about having to get use to working with humans again and I'm going to miss getting to spend all day with you guys." Hana replied.

"Hana, do you know what I see in this loft?" Dekkado asked her.

"What?" Hana asked.

"More than enough room for two human desks." Dekkado replied, "We've all been discussing it and agreed that we would all miss you as well. I've already discussed it with the commissioner, gotten his approval and was planning on asking you later today if you would stay with us." he told her as the rest of the Brave Police gathered around them.

"Thank you all, so much." Hana said gratefully.

"We didn't do it for you, we did it for ourselves, if Yuuta ever has to leave for a while again we didn't want to get stuck trying to find another human who would treat us as equals again, going through that once was more than enough for us." Dumpson told her, "Plus it's not often you find a human who's so tough and brave or who can get Shadow Maru play fetch." he added.

"You're never going to let me forget that are you?" Shadow Maru asked.

"Of course not." Dumpson replied.

A while later Yuuta arrived and the next several hours were spent hearing about his time at the academy and telling him about everything that had been happening since he left.

"I'm glad you guys have been getting along so well with Hana, it really makes what I need to tell you a lot easier." Yuuta said.

"What is that?" McCrane asked.

"I'm transferring to another precinct." Yuuta told them.

Instantly everyone was asking questions at once, after they settled down a bit Dekkado asked, "Why are you transferring?"

"Well- uh, you see while I was in the academy they assigned me a partner for some of the work and we worked really well together and we had the option of being assigned to the same precinct, it just wasn't this one." Yuuta told them.

"You found a better partner than Dekkado?" Hana asked in disbelief.

"Well, no, but she-"

"I knew it! He's abandoning us for some girl." Dumpson said.

"Can you really blame him?" Ayako asked trailing her hand over Dumpson's arm.

"Okay, I guess not, she'd just better be worth it." Dumpson replied.

"She is." Yuuta said, "and if we have the chance to transfer to this precinct together we will. Anyways, it sounds like you guys have been getting along just fine without me." he told them.


	13. Chapter 13

It was Christmas Eve and the entire Brave Police force had been moved to human sized bodies. All of them wore Santa hats except for Drill Boy; Seia, Ayako, Hana and Alexis had all worked together to make him, Alexis and Samantha elf outfits. They had also made Dekkado a Santa suit and when Hana hadn't been around they had made her a Mrs. Clause dress and surprised her with it that day. Gathering up a couple large bags of presents they left for the Christmas party they had been invited to.

A little while later they walked in the front door of the orphanage and were instantly mobbed by the children, Cindy of course instantly latched onto to Dekkado and stayed by his side as he and the others passed out the presents.

Once the presents had all been opened the kids settled down to play with their new toys, Samantha and a couple of other little girls had somehow managed to convince Gun Max and Dumpson as well as Ayako to play Barbie's with them. McCrane and Seia were helping one of the governesses with the babies, Power Joe was showing some of the kids how to use foam nunchakus, Drill Boy and Alexis had found some mistletoe and seemed to have gotten stuck under it. Yuuta and his girlfriend, Charity, were answering some kids questions about what it was like to be a police officer, Dekkado was sitting with Cindy in his lap and several children gathered around him as he read to them. The only person Hana couldn't seem to find was Shadow Maru. She glanced around the room one more time then finally spotted his wings sticking up from behind a couch. Silently walking over and peeking over the back of the couch she found Shadow Maru and two boys who had been fighting earlier and who looked like they were probably identical twins sitting on the floor drawing pictures. The boys had drawn simple stick figures, buildings and such while Shadow Maru had drawn a fairly detailed picture of what she at first thought was himself until she noticed that the coloring and wings were different.

"So that's what your brother looked like?" one of the boys asked.

"Yeah, that's Kagerou, we didn't always agree, just like you two, but I'd give anything to be able to see him just one more time. That's why you two have to try not to fight; you never know what could happen." Shadow Maru told them sadly.

"Okay, we'll try not to fight so much." one boy said.

"Yeah, and we'll always love and forgive each other no matter how annoying the other might be." the other added.

"Good." Shadow Maru said.

Hana's attention was drawn away when she heard Drill Boy and Alexis yell, "Hey."

"What do you think you're doing?" Drill Boy was asking as Hana walked towards them.

"You've been hogging the mistletoe all evening while I've been stuck playing Barbies, it's my turn." Dumpson replied before pulling Ayako under the mistletoe and kissing her.

"I think he's right, you two have been spending way too long under the mistletoe, we came here to entertain the kids, not to see how long you two can kiss without stopping to breathe." Hana told them.

"She does have a point." Alexis admitted not making eye contact with Hana the whole time, "We should be paying more attention to the kids than each other."

"Alright, let's go see if anyone wants to play a game of slip n' slide snow soccer." Drill Boy said heading towards a group of the most hyper kids who had been begging to go outside.

Hana stopped Alexis as she started to follow him, "Why don't you invite him to come over tomorrow for a while?" she suggested.

"Really? You wouldn't mind?" Alexis asked.

"Of course not, I think he really loves you and you two seem to be perfect together." Hana replied.

"You really don't think it's weird or anything, you know him being a robot and everything?" Alexis asked.

"Of course not, I work with these guys every day, I know the only difference between us and them is the fact that their skin is made of metal. Anyways I've known you and Drill Boy were dating for months now, if I had a problem with it I would have said something a long time ago." Hana told her.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you'd be so accepting, but you've known for that long and never said anything about it? How did you know?" Alexis said.

"I figured you'd tell me when you were ready and- well Drill Boy accidentally brought it up." Hana told her.

"How did he accidentally bring it up?" Alexis asked.

"Don't worry about it right now, I think he needs your help." Hana said pointing out the window to where they could see Drill Boy being pelted with snowballs by half a dozen kids.

As the evening went on and the kids started to settle down Dekkado sat down with Cindy as always right by his side and called the kids over. Once they had all gathered around him and were sitting quietly he read them The Night Before Christmas.

A while later as they were driving home Hana asked, "Who was Kagerou?"

"Where on earth did you hear about him?" Dekkado asked.

"I overheard Shadow Maru telling those twin boys about him, but all I really heard was his name, from the sounds of it that he's no longer around and that he was Shadow Maru's brother. How is that even possible?"

"Kagerou was Shadow Maru's prototype, he was there the whole time Shadow Maru was being built, they trained together, had identical AI units and were like brothers. Then it was decided that Kagerou would be stationed somewhere else and that he would have to be reformatted, have all his memories erased."

"Why? Gun Max wasn't reformatted when he was transferred to work with you guys, was he? And what about Duke, he's been transferred from one country to another and back again?" Hana asked.

"No, they weren't, but Kagerou had been there throughout Shadow Maru's creation, he would have known more than any of the rest of us about how we were made. Saejima and Syunsuke seemed to think it was too risky to let him go anywhere else with that knowledge. Kagerou though had the guts to do what I thought about doing hundreds of times before the failed attempt to reformat me, he ran away. Instead of staying hidden though he started causing trouble, he never hurt anyone, but he kept attacking any talking, non sentient machine he came across, almost like he was trying to get our attention. After causing all that destruction when we did finally run into him he made no attempt to attack us, he just ran away. We finally caught up to him and had him cornered until Shadow Maru let him escape, something I don't think Shadow Maru has ever fully forgiven himself for."

"Shortly after that he was captured by a man who had worked on the AI chips and had become a criminal, he reformatted Kagerou's AI chip and installed it in a submarine. Shadow Maru tried to rescue him, but during a fight the sub was damaged and started to sink. Right before it sank too deep for anyone to escape Kagerou overcame the reformatting the same way I had. Being connected to the sub he was able to get Shadow Maru to an escape pod, but in order to launch it he had to remain connected to the sub. Shortly after the escape pod was launched the sub imploded, destroying Kagerou's AI chip with it." Dekkado told her.

"That's horrible, going through all that just because he wanted to live and then dying anyways and poor Shadow Maru, no wonder he sounded so sad when he was talking about him. How could they treat any of you like that, as if you were a regular machine?" Hana said.

"I know, it never seemed right what they had to go through, but it was early on, maybe those who built us hadn't fully accepted that we were sentient at that point." Dekkado said.

The day after Christmas when Hana arrived at work she had barley gotten a few feet from her car when a large snowball flew over her head. She expected it would have come from Drill Boy or Power Joe, they were involved, but were crouched as low as they could behind a large pile of snow left by the snow ploughs, only coming up briefly to throw snowballs at the other side of the parking lot. On the other side of the parking lot was Shadow Maru, easily dodging the incoming snowballs while returning fire.

She had seen the bots get caught up in a snowball fight before, but she could remember only one time that Shadow Maru had gotten involved, that was only because he had deliberately been targeted and he had thrown one snowball back at the person who had hit him before leaving. Now he was darting around genuinely seeming to enjoy himself and looked happier than Hana had ever seen him.

"What's going on here?" Hana finally asked when Drill Boy threw a poorly aimed snowball that nearly hit her.

"They started it." Shadow Maru replied.

"Yeah well I never thought he'd actually stick around to totally kick our butts." Power Joe said.

"Hey, Joe, you remember when we first met and you said there was plenty of room for improvement for me?" Shadow Maru asked as he darted out, grabbing Hana and placing her behind him.

"Yeah." Power Joe replied.

"Well do you think this could be improved?" Shadow Maru asked as he picked up a huge handful of snow then transformed to his tank mode and fired the snow at the pile Drill Boy and Power Joe were behind.

Quickly changing back to robot mode he shielded Hana as the pile of snow exploded sending snow shooting in every direction.

"Okay, okay, you win." Drill Boy said wiping snow from his eyes then making a dash for the station.

"Do you admit defeat?" Shadow Maru asked picking up another snowball and taking a step closer to Power Joe.

"Never, I'm just going to make a tactical withdrawal." Power Joe replied before quickly following Drill Boy.

"Okay, what's up with Shadow Maru?" Dumpson asked late that afternoon after Shadow Maru had left for patrol.

"Yeah, he's been acting strange all day." Power Joe said.

"And he hasn't stopped smiling." Gun Max added.

"He's usually so quiet and serious, I've never seen him this outgoing and cheerful, at least not like this." McCrane said.

"I don't know, he hasn't said anything to me, but I'm sure if he's so happy it can't be anything to worry about." Dekkado said.

For New Years Eve Hana had left Samantha with her parents after she and Alexis had been invited to a New Years Eve party at the Decker room.

Hana, Ayako and Seia were carrying in snacks and drinks for the humans while Dumpson and McCrane, who were in their human sized bodies were setting up a couple of tables for the snacks.

All of the Brave Police's desks had been pushed together to one side of the room to create a large dance floor. Yuuta, Charity, Alexis and Drill Boy were hanging a few decorations from the large computers and few items that had been left on the desks while the others who were still in their full sized bodies were hanging decorations from the walls.

"Where is Shadow Maru, shouldn't he be helping get things set up instead of waiting to show up until all the work is done?" Power Joe asked.

"Yeah, if he doesn't help set up I say we don't let him in later." Dumpson said.

"That's fine with me," Shadow Maru said walking into the room, "I was just stopping by to let you know I'll be leaving."

"Why aren't you going to join us?" Hana asked.

"I have other plans." Shadow Maru replied.

"What plans could you possibly have that could be better than staying here and-" Dumpson suddenly stopped as he looked up at Shadow Maru from where he was standing on the floor by the desks, "When did you get the glass on your cockpit changed to tinted glass?"

"A while ago." Shadow Maru replied shifting uncomfortably, "I really should be going."

"Yeah, wouldn't want to keep your girlfriend waiting." Dumpson said.

"He doesn't have a girlfriend." Gun Max said.

"Oh he may not have told us about her yet, but he most definitely has a girlfriend, that's probably why he's been in such a good mood lately." Dumpson said.

"How do you know?" Drill Boy asked, "Wait, never mind, the tinted glass, right?"

"Exactly." Dumpson replied, "No way he'd have gotten tinted glass and look so uncomfortable if that weren't what's going on."

"Whoa, you're not saying what I think you're saying, are you?" Gun Max asked.

"Oh yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying." Dumpson replied.

"You know what else I just realized?" Drill Boy said.

"What?" Gun Max asked.

"When was the last time you saw him in dog mode?" Drill Boy asked.

Gun Max doubled over laughing, "You're right." he managed to get out between laughs, "So is your girlfriend the only one who gets to see you in dog mode now?" he asked Shadow Maru.

"I'll be back in time for work tomorrow." Shadow Maru said, his facing turning red as he quickly left the room.

"That wasn't very nice, especially coming from you Drill Boy." Hana said.

"Come on, it was funny." Drill Boy said.

"So was you freaking out about it, but no one made fun of you." Hana said.

"Maybe not when you're around, but I still get made fun of sometimes." Drill Boy replied.

"Dumpson, no more making fun of Drill Boy." Hana said, "Or Shadow Maru."

"What makes you think it was me making fun of him?" Dumpson asked.

"Because I just can't see McCrane making fun of someone about something like that." Hana replied.

"Well, you're not in charge, you can't tell me what to do." Dumpson said.

"Well if you don't stop picking on Drill Boy we could always get rid of the single guys and hear how each of you reacted when you found out." Ayako said a devious grin spreading across her face.

"No! That's not necessary, I'll stop harassing him." Dumpson said.

"Okay, now I'm curious." Hana said.

"Under no circumstances are you to ever tell anyone about that." Dumpson told Ayako.

"Yeah, only because you know your story would be the most embarrassing." Ayako said.

"Would someone mind telling me what you guys have been talking about? You lost me when Shadow Maru walked in." Power Joe suddenly cut in.

"You can't be serious; you really haven't figured it out?" Drill Boy asked.

"No, I haven't, none of you are make any sense." Power Joe replied.

"Man, you are totally clueless." Drill Boy said.

"I am not." Power Joe said tossing an oversized, glitter covered foam ball at Drill Boy.

"Hey! Those are supposed to be hung up not thrown at people." Drill Boy said, "Anyways, if you haven't figured it out yet and everyone else in the room has, then it's true."

"Well who says everyone else has figured it out?" Power Joe asked.

"Let's see, the only three who wouldn't have known before this or have obviously already figured it out, would be you two," Drill Boy said turning to Yuuta and Charity.

"Yeah, I think I figured it out, and that's way more than I ever wanted to know about you guys." Charity said.

"Same here." Yuuta added.

"And you." Drill Boy said suddenly looking a little uncomfortable as he turned to face Alexis.

"Uh, yeah, I think I get it to. I think we should talk." Alexis said.

"See, you're the only clueless one in the room." Drill Boy told Power Joe before starting to follow Alexis out of the room.

"Drill Boy." Hana said sweetly.

"Yeah?" Drill Boy asked.

"Don't forget not to do anything stupid, I was serious about neutering you." Hana said.

"I won't." Drill Boy replied.

"Hold on, neuter, as in he actually has everything that you could actually do that to him?" Power Joe asked.

"Big round of applause everyone, he finally figured it out." Drill Boy said before the door closed behind him.

"Well guess we all know about that little development now." McCrane said.

"Speak for yourself, I wouldn't call mine little." Dumpson said.

"Okay, that's enough on that subject." Hana said choking on the punch she had been drinking, "Anyways, Dekkado, doesn't know does he?"

"No, I guess he doesn't, think we should let him in on the secret that everyone else knows about, when he gets back?" Dumpson asked.

"No, he'll be coming back with my sisters and they don't need to know about all this." Yuuta told him.

"I don't think it'll be too terribly long before he finds out on his own anyways." McCrane said.

"So what it just happens when you guys get girlfriends?" Power Joe asked.

"I think it's more when you're really sure you're in love, but yes." McCrane replied.

"Yep, you're right, it shouldn't take him long to find out." Power Joe agreed.

"What are they talking about? I've never seen Dekkado with anyone to even suggest anything like that." Hana asked trying to hide the sudden feelings of jealousy at the thought of Dekkado getting romantically involved with someone.

Seia and Ayako exchanged a quick glance, "I wouldn't worry about it." Seia said right before the door opened and Dekkado walked in with Yuuta's sisters and the party officially began.

* * *

This is where I start combining this story with my other Brave Police story Shadows, if you're not already reading it and want to know the real reason Shadow Maru was in such a good mood the day after Christmas you'll have to check out Shadows or wait several chapters to find out.


	14. Chapter 14

This is the start of one of the more serious and disturbing cases I have planned for the story which means I'm excited to finally be getting to it, I've had it planned since shortly after I started writing this and saw a news article about it. At the same time I'm nervous about writing about something so serious. The next two chapters are already written and then in chapter 17 or 18 the story will start to be combined with my other Brave Police story Shadows, the stories will remain separate, but each will regularly show different sides of what's happening.

* * *

Hana and Dekkado were working on filling out reports for a robbery they had stopped earlier that morning when the commissioner came in along with Mrs. Shinsetsu from the orphanage.

"Mrs. Shinsetsu what are you doing here? Is something wrong?" Dekkado asked a hint of worry in his voice.

"I think someone has kidnapped some of my girls." she replied.

"What exactly happened and how many are missing?" Hana asked.

"Two of the girls disappeared from school a couple days ago. They were best friends, they're both seventeen and couldn't wait to get out of the orphanage. Everyone thought they had just runaway, but then yesterday two more girls disappeared while we were on an outing to the zoo. We searched the whole zoo with the help of the police but never found any sign of them. Then this morning Cindy disappeared, she went out to get some rhubarb from the garden, when she didn't come back after several minutes I went to see what was taking her so long and she was gone. I just thought if anyone could find them it would be you." she told them.

"We'll find them." Dekkado assured her, "Have you let anyone else into the back yard?"

"No, I haven't let any of the kids out of the house and have kept them together with Rose or Christina, we won't let them out of our site."

"Good, I'm having Shadow Maru meet us there, if there's any evidence he'll be able to find it." Dekkado told her before quickly leaving.

When they got to the orphanage Shadow Maru was already there looking around the back yard.

"Have you found anything?" Dekkado asked.

"Two sets of footprints, both most likely male and some mud off of the bottom of one of their shoes. Other than that there's nothing." Shadow Maru replied, "But the mud has a high concentration of salt, sand and traces of old fish scales. I'd say they were down by the docks, probably around some of the old abandoned warehouses."

"Alright, you, Gun Max, Hana and I will head down to the docks to see if we can find anything. Power Joe and Dumpson will join us as soon as they finish their patrols and McCrane will head back to the station and see if there have been any other kidnappings that could be tied to this." Dekkado said then transformed.

Hana got in and they headed for the docks, "Why would someone be targeting orphans."

"I don't know, but if they hurt any of those girls they'll pay and if they hurt Cindy they'll be begging for a quick death sentence by the time I get through with them." Dekkado replied.

After hours of searching Dekkado finally took Hana home then headed out to continue searching.

"Hana! Hana look I got an A+ on my math today!" Samantha called excitedly as she ran to meet Hana as she came in the door.

"That's great sweetheart." Hana said as she dropped into a chair, pulled Samantha into her lap and hugged her, feeling more grateful than ever that she had taken the girls in and hadn't let them be sent to the orphanage.

"Is everything alright?" Alexis asked when Hana continued to hold on to Samantha.

"No, not really." Hana replied finally letting go of Samantha. "Five girls have been kidnapped in the last three days. They were all from the orphanage, but I still want you two to look out for each other and don't go anywhere alone, the more people you're around when you're out the better. Two of the girls were kidnapped from school, they were most likely together at the time and two more were together at the zoo when they were kidnapped. Who ever is kidnapping them has enough people working with them that they can over power multiple victims without causing enough of a disturbance for anyone to notice." Hana told them.

"That's where Sam and I would have been if you hadn't taken us in." Alexis said quietly.

"I know, I know." Hana replied getting up and walking over to the two girls and hugging them, "And I know how much you worry about being a burden to me, but you're not and right now I wouldn't want you anywhere else. If you were in that orphanage I would be worrying my self sick about you and if it had been either of you who had been kidnapped, I don't know what I would have done."

"You really don't think we're a burden to you, even though you have two more people to take care of?" Alexis asked.

"Of course not, if anything I have less to take care of, you take care of your sister, you always have dinner ready if I get home late, you help with the house work, usually more of it than I ever got around to doing before you came and I like having someone around to talk to." Hana told her.

"And because of us being here Dekkado spends more time around here." Alexis said with a mischievous grin.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Hana asked.

"My great grandma and grandpa were 18 and 20 when they got married, grandpa was 95 when he died. After being married all those years they were still madly in love with each other and grandma got the same look on her face when she was watching grandpa as you get when you're watching Dekkado." Alexis said.

"Alexis!" Hana exclaimed too shocked to say anything else.

Just then a timer rang in the kitchen, "I have to go get dinner out before it burns." Alexis said with a grin before running for the kitchen.

Hana woke up early the next morning, when she couldn't fall back to sleep she decided to head to the station early and try to find out if McCrane had been able to find anything and do some searching of her own.

She was surprised when she stepped into the office and found Dekkado still at his desk one arm curled under his head on the desk while his other hand still lay over the computer mouse. He was laying with his face facing the computer screen which showed a report about a local kidnapping, but his eyes were dark.

Hana quietly shut the door then sat at her desk and turned on her own computer to see if she could find anything, though it proved hard to concentrate on. No mater how hard she tried, she kept finding her eyes wandering and watching Dekkado sleep. "_How can he be so hot and sexy when he's fighting criminals and yet so absolutely adorable when he's asleep."_ Blushing slightly at her own thoughts Hana finally forced her eyes away from Dekkado and back to the cases she was going over.

Hana and Dekkado were both going over more kidnapping cases later that afternoon when Hana said, "I think I may have found something. Six girls disappeared from an orphanage about a hundred miles from here last year. They all disappeared within a week of each other and were never found."

"Were there any clues as to why they were being taken or who it might have been?" Dekkado asked.

"No, they didn't have any suspects." Hana replied.

Just then the commissioner called them, "There's a robot heading towards town, I need you to stop it before it get's any closer." he told them.

"Do you know anything about it?" Dekkado asked once they had gotten outside and headed towards it.

"It was created by a man who worked for the government, apparently he wanted to build robots for war purposes and the government refused to fund his work. He still managed to build one and seems to have decided to head after the man who fought the hardest to stop him from getting the funding and he's leaving a trail of destruction as he goes." the commissioner explained.

Hana gasped when they turned a corner and could see the huge robot smash through a barn and then head towards them. "Where are the others?" she asked.

"They were all still on patrol duty and searching the docks, but they should be here in about five minutes." Dekkado replied.

"Can you handle that thing on your own until they get here?" Hana asked.

"I don't have much of a choice. Go check that house and make sure there's no one there." Dekkado told her as he stopped in front of the house, let her out then pulled away and transformed into J-Decker to try to stop the robot.

Hana ran into the house and found a man, woman and their son inside, all of them looked terrified. "You have to get out of here now." she told them.

"Where are we supposed to go, out there with that thing?" the man asked.

"Head to the woods on the other side of the field out back, you'll be well hidden there and can head for the nearest neighbor until this is dealt with. From what I've been told that thing is destroying everything in it's path which means if it get's this far it'll probably go right through this house. You're safer hiding somewhere away from any buildings until we stop it." Hana told them.

"Alright." the man replied looking even more scared as Hana rushed them out the back door of the house.

"Wait! What about Rusty?" the little boy cried.

"Who's Rusty?" Hana asked.

"He's our new puppy he's upstairs, I'll go grab him." the man told her as he started to head back into the house.

"No, get your family to safety, I'll get the dog and bring it too you." Hana told him as a loud crash from out front shook the house.

Hana ran upstairs, found the dog and headed back down stairs, just as she got to the back door there was what sounded like an explosion that shook the house and knocked Hana off her feet, the puppy tumbling out of her arms and then racing out the back door towards the family who was just reaching the edge of the woods. Hana got up and started to head out the door when there was another crash and the whole house collapsed towards her.

Hana choked on the dust kicked up by the house falling and struggled to pull herself out from under several boards and other debris that had fallen on her. She gasped when she moved and a large piece of glass that had been embedded in her upper right arm caught on a board and was pulled out causing the injury to start bleeding profusely and excruciating pain to shoot through her arm. She quickly tore off a strip from the bottom of her shirt and tightly bandaged the wound then finished pulling her self out from under the ruble. After deciding aside from her arm that the worst of her injuries were just a deep feeling cut on her forehead and some bruising, she started to climb up out of the ruble around her then looked around and was horrified when she saw the J-Decker body laying mangled on top of what was left of the house. An arm and leg missing, many large holes through it, a large blade of some type embed just below the neck and the whole front blackened like it had been burned.

She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or more worried that Dekkado was no longer attached to it and started trying to figure out where he was.

As she struggled to get out of the pile of debris the commissioner's voice came over her radio. "Hana? Hana are you there?" he asked.

"Yes, something happened to Dekkado I don't know where he is but J-Roader has been destroyed." Hana told him as she continued to make her way out of the debris.

"You need to get out of there now." the commissioner told her.

"I can't, I have to find Dekkado." she replied stopping to wipe the blood off that was running into her eyes from the cut on her head.

"No, just get out of here, get as far away as you can." Dekkado said over the radio, sounding like he was having a hard time talking and was in pain.

Hana was about to ask why when she came around a pile of ruble and gasped when she spotted Dekkado then ran over to him. It looked like both of his legs had been sheared off, the whole left side of his body had been mangled, his arm nothing more than an unrecognizable twisted piece of metal, his chest and side ripped open and the whole side of his head ripped up with the optic missing, some type of fluid bleeding out of the wounds and a large mass of some type of silver metal was embedded inside the wound on his chest.

"Hana, get out of here." Dekkado told her.

"I'm not leaving you, we've got to get you back to the station and fixed up." Hana replied fighting back tears.

"Hana, you need to get out of there now, there's nothing you can do for him and we don't know how much time you have, you have to get as far away as possible now." the commissioner said over the radio.

"Why? The robot is heading towards town, I'm in no danger from it, why can't I stay with him until someone can come get him?" Hana asked.

"That thing attached a bomb to him, we can detect it through a device that allows us to detect damage and energy levels that's installed on each of the robots so we know what's happening to them from here. We can also tell that it's a very powerful bomb and it's been attached with some type of nanobot technology that's attached it to him, the only way it can possibly be removed is if you had a blow torch or some way of cutting through the metal. There's nothing we can do for him and we don't know how soon the bomb will go off." Syunsuke told her.

"Get out of here Hana." Dekkado told her.

"I can't just leave you." Hana replied.

"That's an order, get somewhere safe." Dekkado insisted.

"No, there has to be something I can do." she replied defiantly, then asked Syunsuke, "You've moved their minds from one body to another before, can it be done without any special equipment?"

"There isn't time, the situation is too dangerous, just get out of there." The commissioner told her.

"No. Just tell me, can it be done?" Hana demanded.

"No one has ever tried removing one by hand, although it shouldn't cause him any problems you could end up being electrocuted, there's no way to know what to expect and if that bomb goes off you'll be killed." Syunsuke said.

"It's to dangerous Hana, just go." Dekkado told her.

"I'm not leaving you behind, either this works and we both get out of here or we both die, I won't leave you." Hana told him, then she asked Syunsuke, "Can you talk me through this?"

"Yes, there are several latches on the edges of his helmet, you need to unlatch those and remove it." he told her.

After carefully unlatching the ones that hadn't already been blown off she tried to pull the helmet off, but it wouldn't budge. "It's not working, it won't come off."

"How much damage is there to the front of his helmet?" Syunsuke asked.

"The whole thing has multiple cracks and there's a huge section of the left front of it missing." Hana told him.

"There's a flat dark blue chip about three by two inches in the center of his forehead under the helmet. Can you see any of it?"

"I think so, but just the edge of it." Hana told him.

"There are four clips, one on each side, if you can get to them you need to release those and then you should be able to remove it. We've never done it with one of them conscious, so just get it out as quickly and carefully as you can." he told her.

"Alright." Hana replied then reached for the first clip and gasped, pulling her hand back instinctively when she felt a slight electrical shock and Dekkado flinched.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, just hurt a little, just get this over with and then get out of here." Dekkado told her.

Hana carefully unlatched the first clip then had to slide her fingers under the edge of his helmet to get the others while trying to ignore the stinging pain as electricity burned her hand. As she unlatched the last clip Dekkado's remaining eye went dark.

"You've got it, according to the monitoring device, it's fully disconnected, carefully pull it out and then get as far away as possible as quickly as you can." Syunsuke told her.

"He should be alright, right?" Hana asked as she ran towards the woods.

"He should be, but there's no way to be sure until we can get him back into a body, the last time he was hurt this badly he lost his memory." Syunsuke told her.

As Hana reached the edge of the woods she heard the explosion behind her and ducked behind a large boulder, curling up on the ground with Dekkado's AI chip clutched to her chest in both hands. She gasped as she felt the heat from the explosion wash over her and burn into her back. As the heat dissipated Hana dropped onto her side and just laid there to weak from blood loss to move. "Please be alright, I need you, I… I love you." she whispered before slipping into unconsciousness.


	15. Chapter 15

The next thing Hana was aware of she was laying in a hospital bed and could hear someone talking just outside the door.

"Her right hand has some mild buns, a cut at the hair line on her forehead that required a few stitches and she had some minor burning across her back, but it's minor enough that it should clear up within twenty four hours. The most sever injury is a deep cut to her right arm that went nearly to the bone, other than that it's mostly just bruises and cuts, but nothing else in need of stitches. She did suffer a lot of blood loss from her injuries so she's severely weakened, but she should fully recover without any problems." a man said.

"Thank you doctor." she heard the commissioner say as she forced her self to ignore the pain as she got out of the bed and after a moment of dizziness passed, slipped on a robe that had been left on a chair next to the bed, then headed towards the door.

The commissioner stepped into the doorway, "Hana what are you doing out of that bed, you shouldn't be trying to move, the doctor said you shouldn't even be conscious for a few more hours at least." he said as he tried to get her to go back to the bed.

"Where's Dekkado? Is he alright?" she asked.

"He's fine, he's been put into one of the smaller temporary bodies until a new one can be built for him. He's weakened and we're not letting him out of the repair bay until his systems have finished updating the body, but he'll be just fine. Now you need to get off of your feet and get some rest." Saejima told her.

"I want to see him, when can I leave?" Hana asked.

"I don't know, if I go ask will you please lay back down until I get back?" he asked.

"I guess." Hana replied reluctantly sitting back down on the bed.

A few minutes latter Saejima came back with the doctor. After checking her injuries the doctor said, "I really think it would be best to keep you here over night to ensure you get the rest you need and to make sure some of the more sever cuts won't open up again and need stitches."

"There's no way I'll be able to sleep here, if you really want me to get some rest let me go home and sleep in my own bed and I can keep an eye on the cuts my self, I'll call you if there are any problems." Hana told him.

"I have a feeling she'll just keep fighting you if you try to keep her here." Saejima said.

"Alright, I'll get the discharge paper work done, but I want to see you back in a few days to make sure everything is healing properly." the doctor told her.

"No problem." Hana replied, after he left she looked at Saejima and said, "Thank you for backing me up."

"Don't thank me, I'm just trying to save myself some trouble I've dealt with Seia and Ayako long enough to know trying to keep you away from Dekkado would just end up with you finding one way or another to see him and I don't want you hurting yourself any worse trying to sneak out of here." he replied.

"What- what do you mean?" Hana asked suddenly feeling very nervous.

"The radio was still working perfectly before you passed out. Don't look so nervous it's not like you're the first woman to fall for one of them and honestly I was already suspicious you two had feelings for each other. Now get some rest, I called Seia to bring you some clothes, so until she gets here and the doctor gets the paper work done I want you to rest." he told her.

"Alright." Hana replied to shocked that he had heard what she had said to say much else about it then she asked, "What ended up happening to that robot?"

"Between Gun Max, Shadow Maru and Super Build Tiger they were able to stop it just before it made it to town. They got a little banged up, but everyone is fine." he told her then left.

Hana was sitting on the bed, staring out the window and wondering how many people might have heard what she had said, she knew Syunsuke had been close enough to the radio to have been talking to her so he had probably heard and who knew who else could have been in the room with them and heard what she said. Her greatest worry though was that someone might say something to Dekkado about it. Although the commissioner had sounded like he thought Dekkado had feelings for her, she had a hard time believing that and if he didn't feel the same way she was afraid it would make working with him awkward.

Sighing she rested her face in her hands, flinching as pain shot through her right arm and she pulled it back.

"Saejima said you were supposed to be resting, what are you doing up?" Seia asked.

"I have to much on my mind to possibly rest right now." Hana replied.

"You look worried sick, Saejima told you everyone is fine and that guy in the robot was arrested, didn't he?" she asked.

"Yeah, I just said something right before I passed out that I probably shouldn't have and Saejima and who knows how many other people overheard me on the radio. I don't know what I was thinking, I just- I was so weak and just felt like there was no way I was going to get out of there alive, I knew he couldn't hear me like that since it was just the AI chip, but I… I told Dekkado I loved him. Now I'm worried sick that someone will say something to him, Saejima seems to think he might feel the same way, but what if he doesn't? What if it causes problems with us working together? What if-"

"Hana, relax, freaking out about this now won't do anything but leave you feeling weaker than you already are. If you're that worried about it maybe you should just wait until tomorrow to go into the station, just to give your self time to get use to the idea that he might know and possibly ask Saejima who all heard you and if anyone may have mentioned it. I could just give you a ride back to your house if you want." Seia told her.

"No, I need to see Dekkado, I need to see for myself that he's really alright." Hana replied.

"Alright, get dressed and then we'll head down to the station. I can completely understand needing to see for your self that he's okay, it doesn't matter how many people tell you someone you care about is alright, you have to see them your self before you can stop worrying." Seia replied.

When they got to the station they headed strait to the repair bay. As they came down the hall they noticed Yuuta pacing outside the door.

"Is everything alright?" Seia asked him.

"No, I don't know, Dekkado just seems, I don't know distracted maybe, something just isn't right and I don't know what it is." he replied.

"I'm sure he'll be fine, he's just been through a lot." Seia told him.

"I hope you're right." he replied.

When they walked into the repair bay Hana walked over to Syunsuke and asked, "Where's Dekkado? Is he alright?"

"Aside from the fact that I think his mind has totally short circuited and he's driving me crazy he's fine." he replied not looking up from what he was working on.

"What do you mean his mind short circuited?" Hana asked suddenly scared to death that something she had done when removing his AI chip might have caused damage.

"Ignore him, I'm perfectly fine." Dekkado said coming up behind her.

Hana spun around and threw her arms around his neck, "I was so afraid you wouldn't be alright." she said fighting back tears of relief then realizing what she had done she started to pull away from him, "I'm sorry I've just been so worried I…" she started to say then hesitated a moment when she realized he had wrapped his arms around her waist and although he had loosened them a little he didn't actually let go of her.

"I know, it's alright, I've been pretty worried about you too." he told her with a soft smile before finally letting her go and saying, "We should let him get back to work and get you somewhere where you can get off your feet and rest."

"Okay." Hana replied then noticed that McCrane had come out and was leading Seia and Yuuta out of the room in the opposite direction. "Where are they going?" she asked as Dekkado lead her into a room off of the repair bay.

"I ask him to keep them busy for a while so I could talk to you alone for a moment." he told her.

"Why, what is it?" Hana asked suddenly feeling a little nervous.

Dekkado hesitated a moment then said, "Its about what you said before you passed out."

Hana felt the blood drain from her face and she couldn't bring her self to look at his face, too afraid he was about to tell her he thought she was crazy or at least that he certainly didn't feel the same way. "How did you find out?" she finally asked quietly.

"We still have some sense of what's going on around us and can hear even after being removed from a body." Dekkado told her.

"I… I don't know what I was thinking… I just-" she stopped as he rested his hand on her shoulder, his face completely unreadable.

"I just want to know if that's how you really feel." Dekkado told her.

Hana hesitated a moment then said, "Yes."

"I love you too." he told her, smiling as he tilted her face up to look at him before gently kissing her forehead.

Hana let out a relived sigh as the tension seemed to disappear from her body, then her strength seemed to disappear as well and her knees buckled.

Dekkado caught her around the waist as she grabbed his arm, "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, just really tired all of a sudden." Hana replied.

"Shadow Maru said you were running on adrenalin and nervousness, you're doing better than he thought you would though. He said you would probably be unconscious again as soon as you relaxed." Dekkado told her.

"How did he know?"

"He scanned you when you were coming in and then let me know." Dekkado told her, "Now lets get you somewhere you can rest." he said scooping her up into his arms.

"Sounds good to me." Hana replied laying her head on his shoulder. "So what did you do to drive Syunsuke so crazy?" she asked as they headed out of the room.

"Pacing and asking him what I should do about telling you that I had heard what you said and worrying about if you were going to be alright. He finally had McCrane and Dumpson get me out of there, then when Seia called and told us how worried you were about the whole thing I knew I had to tell you." Dekkado told her.

"I'm glad you did." Hana said as she started to doze off.

The last thing she was aware of was the sound of someone walking up to them and Dumpson saying, "See, I told you, you could handle telling her."

"Now there are some things you should know about." McCrane said.

"Don't warn him, I want to see if he'll freak out like Drill Boy did." Dumpson said.

The next thing Hana new she woke up in her bed and could faintly hear people talking downstairs.

When she got down to the kitchen Alexis was showing Dekkado how to use the microwave.

"What are you two doing?" Hana asked as she walked into the room.

"Dekkado is going to be staying here to keep an eye on you and make sure you don't over do it and hurt yourself while Sam and I are at school." Alexis replied.

"I just have some scrapes and bruises nothing worth staying home from work for, especially when we have to find those missing girls." Hana told her.

"Good luck convincing the commissioner of that." Dekkado told her, "He's ordered both of us to take a few days off for your injuries to heal and for me to adjust to this body."

"How did you get stuck taking care of me if you're supposed to be taking it easy too?" Hana asked.

"Because I told Saejima if he kept me in the repair bay any longer I would go crazy and this was the only thing I could come up with that he would actually agree to let me do. Anyways I'm not actually hurt, just getting use to being in this body, it's not one I'm use to using very often, although I have a feeling that's going to change." Dekkado told her.

"Couldn't we just go sit in the office and go over those records?" Hana asked.

"I already tried suggesting that, he might have let me get away with it, but he said he didn't want you moving any farther than from your bed to the couch."

"But what about those girls, I can't just lay around when we have no idea what could be happening to them." Hana said.

"That's what I told Saejima, he gave me two laptops with a direct link to all of the police files that we would have access to at the station." Dekkado told her.

"Excellent, where are they?" Hana asked smiling.

"He's not going to tell you until you've had a good healthy breakfast." Alexis said.

Sighing Hana said, "Oh alright if I have to."

Hana and Dekkado spent the rest of the day sitting on the couch going over every kidnapping case they could find.

"I've found another one." Hana said that evening, "Seven girls, between the ages of 14 and 17, all from orphanages in Akita and all taken less than a week apart, two years ago. And still no suspects, whoever is doing this comes in takes the girls and leaves before anyone even notices them."

"Which means if we don't find them soon we may never find them." Dekkado said.

"We will, if anyone can find them it's you." Hana said trying to stifle a yawn.

"We've been at this for almost eight hours, you should get some rest before the girls get home from school." Dekkado said.

"I'm fine." Hana replied trying to hide how tired she really felt.

"I may not have all of Shadow Maru's extra scanners, but I can still tell you're exhausted. Trust me I want to find those girls more than anything, but if you're half asleep you could miss something that could help us track them down." Dekkado told her.

Sighing in defeat Hana set her computer down, "Fine I'll rest for a little while, but I'm not going upstairs and you have to wake me up if you find anything." Hana said curling her feet up under her and resting her head on Dekkado's arm.

"Alright." he replied smiling and gently resting his hand over Hana's for a second before returning to his search.

Hana was woken by a flash of light and Alexis saying, "Awww you two are so cute together."

Hana opened one eye to look up at Alexis who was standing in front of the couch with a camera.

"Are you two really girlfriend and boyfriend now?" Samantha asked excitedly running up to Hana as she sat up.

"Who told you that?" Hana asked shocked that she new.

"Drill Boy picked us up and brought us home, he told us that Dumpson had told him you two were finally officially a couple." Alexis told them.

"Well hopefully you didn't want to wait to let everyone know about us, between Dumpson and Drill Boy everyone should know by the time we get back to work." Dekkado said.

"I don't mind, it'll save us telling them." Hana replied, "Now what I want to know is how she managed to get in here and take our picture without you stopping her."

"Well either he was too distracted holding your hand or he was to absorbed in whatever he was reading on the computer. We came in really quietly just in case you were asleep so he probably didn't hear us come in then when I saw how cute you looked sleeping on his shoulder while he was sitting there using the computer with one hand, with the other one over your hand I just couldn't resist getting a picture." Alexis told her.

"So you two really are dating now?" Samantha asked.

"Yes." Hana replied smiling.

"Good, since Hana's like a new mommy to us and you two are dating now can you be our new daddy?" Samantha asked giving Dekkado the biggest puppy eyes he'd ever seen.

"I'd like that very much." Dekkado told her.

Samantha grinned and threw her arms around Dekkado's neck, when she let go she said, "I like you being our size so I can hug you."

"So do I." Dekkado replied.

"Okay Sam, home work." Alexis said then looked at Hana and Dekkado with a mischievous grin, "And you two relax and cuddle or go over cases or whatever it is that cops think is a romantic way to spend an hour or so until I get dinner made." she said before disappearing into the kitchen.

"So did you find anything new while I was asleep?" Hana asked.

"Nothing." Dekkado replied reaching for the computer.

Hana caught his arm and said, "Alexis is right, you really should take at least a short break and try to relax a little. Working yourself until you collapse really isn't a good idea."

"I suppose you're right." Dekkado relented sitting back and hesitantly wrapping an arm around Hana's shoulders.

Hana smiled and laid her head on Dekkado's shoulder, "I have to agree with Samantha, I like having you this size too." she said entwining her fingers through his.

"It is nice to be able to hold you like this, I'm beginning to understand why Dumpson and McCrane prefer to spend their off duty time in bodies like this." Dekkado replied.

About an hour later Alexis came in to tell them dinner was ready and Dekkado said, "I should get back to the station, I promised Syunsuke I would be back before he left so he can make sure everything is adjusting properly."

"How will you get to the station?" Hana asked.

"I brought one of the regular cars when I came over this morning." Dekkado told her.

"You can drive like that?" Hana asked the thought of him actually sitting behind the wheel of a car seeming strange.

"Not exactly like a human does, but I can drive. I'll show you when you're allowed to come back to work."

"Alright. So will you come back tomorrow?" Hana asked.

"If the commissioner won't let me work I will and even if he does I'll still stop by to see how you're doing." Dekkado told her.

"I'll see you tomorrow then." Hana said.

"Until tomorrow." Dekkado said taking Hana's hand in his for a second and kissing her forehead before stepping out the door.

A few seconds later Alexis said, "You can stand there grinning and staring dreamily at the door as long as you want, but dinner is going to get cold if you stay there too long.

Hana blushed, but couldn't keep from smiling as she turned to Alexis, "Somehow I've managed to win the heart of one of the most amazing, wonderful men on earth. I'm still trying to convince my self this is really happening."


	16. Chapter 16

Hana woke up early the next morning and found Alexis and Samantha already up and almost ready to leave for school. "What are you two doing up so early?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Drill Boy is taking us out to the soccer field for a while before school and then taking us to school." Alexis replied.

"Alright, just make sure you're not late getting to school."

"We won't be." Alexis assured her.

As soon as the girls had left Hana got dressed and headed to the station, she just couldn't stand sitting around the house for another day.

She was almost to the door of the Decker room when a voice said, "I thought you were supposed to be at home resting. What are you doing here?"

"Saejima, I- I just can't stand being stuck at home any longer, can't I just stay in the office?" she asked.

He hesitated a moment then said, "Fine, but if I think you're over doing it and could cause any further damage to your injuries I'll have to send you home."

"Thank you very much Saejima." she said gratefully before slipping into the room.

When she looked around the room she couldn't help smiling when she spotted Dekkado at her desk, asleep. She carefully set her purse down and pulled out her camera, he was just too adorable when he was asleep to pass up a second chance to get a picture of him. Although as adorable as he was she still hoped that he wouldn't often have cases that he pushed him self to the point of collapsing to try to solve.

She grimaced when the flash went off and felt horribly guilty when Dekkado's eyes lit up. "I'm so sorry, I didn't think the flash would go off with the office lights on." Hana said as she walked over to him.

"Don't worry about, I needed to be awake anyways. What were you doing, getting evidence of me sleeping on the job?" Dekkado asked.

"Not at all, you're not really supposed to be working anyways. I just happen to think you looked adorable and now that I'm your girlfriend I figure I can get away with taking pictures of you." Hana told him.

He smiled at her then asked, "What are you doing here, aren't you supposed to be at home resting?"

"I convinced Saejima to let me stay in the office. So did you find anything else?" she asked.

"A few more similar cases, we've got a total of seven cases, spread out all over Japan in just the last four years now. Out of all those cases I've only found one witness who said they saw a man hold a cloth over one of the girls mouth's and then drag her into a white van. They didn't see a license plate number and never actually saw the man's face." Dekkado told her.

"Well at least we know how they're getting the girls without a fight, they're probably using chloroform to knock them out." Hana said.

"But it still doesn't get us any closer to finding them and if we don't find them soon I'm afraid we never will." Dekkado said, a note of desperation in his voice that broke Hana's heart.

"We'll find them, somehow we will." Hana assured him resting her hands on his shoulders.

"I hope you're right." he replied reaching up to wrap his hand around one of hers.

The phone rang, Dekkado answered it and a few seconds later flew out of the chair and headed out the door.

"Dekkado what's going on?" Hana asked as she followed him.

"A woman just reported seeing a girl trying to run out of an abandoned warehouse, outside of town and then being dragged back in by a man who grabbed her and knocked her out by holding something over her mouth." he told her as they got into a cruiser.

"It's got to be them." Hana said then noticed Dekkado pulling off a panel from the front of the dash. "Don't you have the keys?" Hana asked.

"Sure, but it'll be a lot faster if I drive." he told her as the ends of two of his fingers folded down to reveal what looked like the connectors you would find on the back of a computer. As soon as he connected them to the ports on the dash the car came on and tore off down the road with the lights and siren on.

"So this is how you drive?" Hana asked.

"Yes, we have a few cars that were specially made so that we can drive them like this, it has all kinds of extra censors so that once we're connected to the system it's similar to when it's just us driving, although I would still feel more in control if it were actually my body." Dekkado told her.

"Wow. So what about the others, will they be meeting us at the warehouse?" Hana asked.

"It's still an hour before they were supposed to be at the station, McCrane and Dumpson both still need to get to the station and be returned to their normal sized bodies, Power Joe was still keeping an eye on the orphanage, Drill Boy is with Sam and Alexis and has to drop them off at school before he can come, Gun Max was on a morning drive north of town and no one can get a hold of Shadow Maru or has any idea where he is. We're the closest to the scene, Gun Max and Power Joe should arrive ten to fifteen minutes after we do depending on traffic." Dekkado told her.

As they got closer to the warehouse Dekkado turned off the lights and siren. He parked the car just out of sight of the warehouse, as they started to head towards the building Hana stopped and grabbed Dekkado's arm. "Be careful, you're not as big and powerful as you normally are." she told him.

Dekkado smiled, "I will be, just make sure you are too." he said kissing her forehead before pulling out his gun as they continued towards the building.

They quietly slipped into the warehouse through an unlocked side door. There was no sign of anyone, but they could hear men talking in a room down a hallway and silently started to make their way towards the room.

They were just about to open the door when it swung open and a man in a suit of robotic armor flew out at them, catching Dekkado by the neck with one hand and the hand with his gun in with the other and slammed him into the wall.

"Let him go!" Hana demanded aiming her gun at the man where she could see him through the armor.

"Or what, you'll try to shoot him and hope you actually hit him through all that metal?" a man said stepping out of the room and aiming a gun at Hana. "Now why don't you drop your gun and we might let you live."

"Yeah, you really don't want to die badly enough to try fighting all of us do you?" another man with a gun said as he came out of the room.

"You won't hurt us?" Hana asked praying that back up would get there soon.

"No, we we're just about to leave anyways, if you'd gotten here ten minutes later you would have missed us. We'll just tie you up and leave you here, I'm sure someone will find you, maybe."

When Hana hesitated a moment the man in the robotic armor tightened his grip on Dekkado's arm, beginning to crush the metal and making Dekkado flinch at the pain, "Make up your mind or I'll crush your little robot." the man said.

"Alright, alright, just don't hurt him." Hana said reluctantly lowering her gun to the floor.

"Aw isn't that sweet, she doesn't want her little robot to get hurt. Makes you wonder how much one of these things is worth." the one man said.

Hana just glared at the man as she was taken farther down the hall at gun point. As they passed one room Hana noticed the five missing girls sitting along one wall, all handcuffed and chained together.

"What do you want with the girls." Hana demanded.

"None of your business." the man replied.

"If you hurt them-" Hana started to say.

"Oh don't worry, we never play too rough with our merchandise, didn't even get to play with most of this group, our employer gets paid extra and so do we if they're still virgins." the man told her as they entered another room.

Hana's stomach churned at the implications of what the man had said and decided she didn't care if they did have guns, she couldn't just stand there and take a chance of them escaping before the others could get there. Just as she was about to swing her elbow back into the mans stomach Dekkado made a sound like quietly clearing his throat. Hana looked at him, their eyes meeting and he slightly shook his head no. Reluctantly Hana forced her self to relax a bit.

"Now since you're so fond of your little robot wrap your arms around his waist." the one man told her.

Hana hesitated a moment, but did as she was told, flinching slightly as the man roughly handcuffed her hands behind Dekkado's back, sending a shock of pain through her injured arm. The man then took a piece of thick metal wire and wrapped it around Hana's waist crisscrossing it behind her back then handcuffed Dekkado's arms around her and attached the wire to the handcuffs. "Now just in case you get any ideas about having this thing break those handcuffs and trying to escape, just remember, if he pulls hard enough to break the handcuffs that wire will rip you in half." the man said grinning evilly at her.

Once the men left the room Hana let herself tighten her arms around Dekkado, "Why'd you stop me, what if they escape before the others get here?" she asked.

Dekkado tightened his arms around her comfortingly and said, "Everything will be alright, everyone is on their way, Gun Max and Power Joe will be here in less than five minutes and the others-" He stopped for a second as if he were listening to something,

"What's wrong?" Hana asked not entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"There was an accident, traffic is backed up for over a mile, it'll take them longer to get here." Dekkado told her.

"We have to get loose, can you pick the lock on the handcuffs?" Hana asked.

"I think so, but I don't have anything to pick it with." Dekkado replied.

"How about a hairpin?" Hana asked.

"You have one?"

"Yes, just above my right ear." Hana told him.

Dekkado tried to get it with his hand, but could only reach as high as her shoulder before the wire started to tighten too much around her waist.

"Try getting it with your teeth, if you can get it that way you should be able to get it to your hands over my shoulder without the wire pulling that much." Hana suggested turning her head so he could get to the hairpin more easily.

He almost had it out of her hair when it caught and pulled out of his mouth then dropped out of her hair. "I dropped it and I'm not sure where it went." he said.

"I know and I know where it is." she said suddenly wishing she had buttoned the top button of her shirt even if it did make the neck feel to tight.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"Down my shirt and stuck in my bra." Hana replied somehow managing to sound a lot calmer about the situation than she really felt.

"Please tell me you have another hairpin." Dekkado said.

"I only wear them when I can't get my hair to stay the way I want it, that was the only one I needed today." Hana replied, then blushing slightly she asked, "Do you think you can get to it?"

"But I would have to…"

"I know, but we have two choices either you get that hairpin and get us out of these handcuffs or you break out of the handcuffs, probably killing me in the process. Letting those men get away so they can kidnap more girls and- I don't even want to think about what they have planned for the girls they have. Letting them get away isn't an option and I would much rather try to get out of this alive." Hana told him.

"Alright." Dekkado replied reluctantly then tore the top two buttons off of her shirt with his teeth.

He had just started trying to get a hold of the hairpin which seemed to have wedged itself as far down into her bra as possible, when Hana noticed the door open.

Gun Max just knelt there in the doorway staring at them with a look of complete shock and confusion on his face.

When Dekkado finally lifted his face with the hairpin stuck between his teeth and mumbled "Got it" Gun Max doubled over laughing.

Dekkado jumped and turned his head to see Gun Max and looked even more horrified about what he had been caught doing than Hana was.

"It's not funny, will you please get us out of these." Hana snapped.

"It is from this angle." Gun Max replied still laughing as he crawled through the door and then carefully removed the wire and broke the handcuffs off of them.

"Did you stop the men?" Dekkado demanded sounding no more amused about Gun Max's laughing than Hana was.

"Yeah, Shadow Maru got your message, the three of us were able to fly here, Drill Boy and I got here right after he did." Gun Max replied trying to act serious but failing miserably.

"What about the girls?" Hana asked as they headed out of the room.

"Drill Boy was freeing them." Gun Max replied.

As they started down the hall the girls came out of the room they had been being held in, as soon as Cindy saw Dekkado she ran to him, threw her arms around him and started crying, "I told them you'd come rescue us." she said between sobs.

"Of course. Are you alright?" Dekkado asked as he held her.

"I'm really hungry." she told him.

"Well why don't you go with Shadow Maru, he's going to take you to the hospital to make sure you're okay and they can get you something to eat there." he told her.

"Okay." she said hugging him tightly before running over to where the other girls were getting into Shadow Maru.

Once Shadow Maru had left Dekkado turned towards the three men, "Who are you working for?" Dekkado demanded.

"We're not telling you anything." the first man said.

Dumpson, who had arrived with the rest of the Build Team, stepped towards the men stomping his foot down only a few inches away from them.

"We've got a few people we sell the girls to, who ever will pay us the most get's them." the second man said as he tried to take a step away from Dumpson's foot.

"What do you care, they're just a bunch of stupid worthless orphans, no one's going to care what happens to them. At least we make sure someone gets some use out of them and we make a good profit at the same time. Would have gotten some real good money for that pretty little one, we've got a couple buyers lookin for young ones like her, someone would have gotten lots a good use out of her." the third man said with a twisted grin on his face that left Hana torn between wanting to be sick and wanting to slug the grin off of his face. So she was only a little shocked when Dekkado slugged the man, sending him flying backwards across the room with a loud crack.

When the man got back to his feet his jaw was hanging at an odd angle, several teeth were missing and there were several areas where the skin had simply shredded from being crushed between metal and bone. Where the skin wasn't torn it was turning deep shades of purple and black. The man just glared at them when he realized his jaw wouldn't work.

Hana smiled at Dekkado, "Thank you for doing that, that's exactly what I felt like doing, but I think you did it much better than I could have." she said as they walked over and handcuffed the men. "Now would you boys like to continue your questioning here or will you come quietly back to the station with us?" Hana asked.

"We'll come quietly ma'am." the second man replied quickly, looking nervously from Dekkado to Dumpson's foot.

"Good." Hana said.

"McCrane, take her to the hospital to have that arm checked and then make sure she get's home." Dekkado said.

"No way, I'm coming back to the station with you." Hana said.

"Not with that arm you're not, it looks like the stitches probably tore out. I'll let you know what we find out." Dekkado told her.

Hana glanced at her arm and was surprised to find the whole sleeve of her shirt was soaked with blood. Hana let out a defeated sigh, "Alright. But I'm coming down to the station as soon as I get my arm taken care of." she told him.

"You really should go home and rest, but alright." Dekkado relented as he led the men out to the cruiser.


	17. Chapter 17

As soon as Hana's arm had been stitched up she started to head to the front desk to asked about the girls, but ran into Mrs. Shinsetsu in the hall.

"Have you seen the girls yet?" Hana asked.

"Not yet, I wasn't able to come until I found someone to stay with the other children. I'm on my way to see them now." she replied.

"Mind if I join you?" Hana asked.

"Of course not. Do you think they're okay?" Mrs. Shinsetsu asked.

"I don't know, they were all upset, but that's all I had a chance to notice. We got them sent here pretty quickly." Hana told her.

When they arrived at the room the girls were supposed to be in, two female officers were just stepping out.

"Is everything okay?" Hana asked.

"Depends on your definition of okay. They've all been traumatized. The four younger girls weren't physically hurt, apparently the men told them they were more valuable as virgins, but the oldest girl wasn't a virgin. What those bastards did to her, they deserve a slow painful death. They raped her repeatedly and right in the same room with the other girls too. She's going to be kept here at least over night, but they should release the other girls soon." the officer told them.

"My poor girls, can I go in and see them?" Mrs. Shinsetsu asked.

"Of course. There's a nurse in there with them now, but I'm sure you can go on in." the officer replied before leaving.

When they got into the room one of the girls was asleep in one bed while three of the other's sat on the other bed together. Cindy was curled up in a chair sobbing so hard you couldn't understand what she was attempting to say, while the nurse was trying to convince her she needed to calm down and eat something.

"What's wrong with her? Did they hurt her?" Hana asked as she walked over to them, "She seemed fine when they headed here."

"No, physically she's fine they didn't hurt her. And that's what the other girls said too, they said no matter what happened she was as tough as nails, nothing could shake her while they were being held captive. I think now that they're safe she's finally reacting to everything that's happened. All she's done is cry, refuse to eat anything and begged for someone named Dekkado." the nurse told them.

"How soon can she be released?" Hana asked.

"We really need to get her to eat something before we let her leave, all of the girls have barely been fed." the nurse replied.

Hana knelt down in front of Cindy, "Honey, the doctor isn't going to let you leave until you eat something, so do you think you could eat a little something for me if I take you to see Dekkado as soon you're allowed to leave?" she asked.

Cindy stopped crying and slowly nodded her head yes then asked, "You promise I can see him?"

Hana glanced up at Mrs. Shinsetsu and she nodded her head that it would be alright and Hana said, "I promise."

Within half an hour Cindy had eaten enough to make the doctor happy and Hana had called Shadow Maru to pick them up.

"I take it I'm not taking you home." Shadow Maru said as they got in.

"No, I promised her she could go see Dekkado. She's had a rough time and it was the only way to calm her down enough to eat anything." Hana explained.

As soon as they arrived in the Deckerd room Cindy ran to Dekkado, jumping up into his arms and clinging to him as she started to cry again, although not as hard as before.

"I hope you don't mind me brining her in, but she needed to see you." Hana told him, raising an eyebrow when she noticed that there was a large hole in one wall of her loft, but she decided to wait until later to ask about it.

"Of course I don't mind, honestly after hearing the statements the other girls gave I wish I could just keep her with me." Dekkado told her.

Within fifteen minutes Cindy was sound asleep with her head on Dekkado's shoulder, "I'm going to take her to the break room so you don't all have to be so quite." Dekkado told Hana before leaving the room.

Once he had left Han turned to the others and asked, "What happened to the wall?"

"That was Dekkado's reaction when he heard the girls statements about what had happened to them." McCrane told her.

"Yeah, he's never handled people hurting kids very well, add to that the fact that Cindy was involved and, well if those men had been here they probably wouldn't have been alive for very long. I don't think I've ever seen him so angry." Dumpson added.

"If we didn't need to find out who they sell the girls to I would help him." Hana said.

"I think we all would." Gun Max said.

Cindy spent the rest of the day refusing to leave Dekkado's side and started sobbing that evening when they told her it was time for her to go back to the orphanage. Hana drove them to the orphanage while Dekkado sat in the back seat with Cindy, trying to calm her down and convince her that she'd be alright without him.

When they arrived Mrs. Shinsetsu came out to meet them, "She's still crying?" she asked.

"No, she's only cried a little on and off all day, she just doesn't want to leave Dekkado." Hana explained.

"I wish she could stay with him, it would probably be the best thing for her after all she's been through." Mrs. Shinsetsu said.

"Do you think she could stay with me? Dekkado has already been spending a lot of time at my place since he's been stuck in this smaller body. I'm sure he wouldn't mind spending the night if it meant staying with her." Hana said.

"I think that would be a wonderful idea, I'll go get together a couple of her things." Mrs. Shinsetsu replied before heading into the house.

"How would you like to come stay with me?" Hana asked leaning into the car where Cindy was still clinging to Dekkado and refusing to let him go.

"I want to stay with Dekkado." she said between sobs.

Hana smiled, "He can come stay with you." she told her.

"Really?" Cindy asked.

"Really." Hana replied.

Cindy let go of Dekkado just long enough to give Hana a quick hug, "Thank you." she said before curling back up against Dekkado's side.

When they got to Hana's house Alexis already dinner ready, "That smells delicious, do we have enough for a guest?" Hana asked.

"Sure, who's our guest though?" Alexis asked.

"One of the girls that were kidnapped, it's not the first time Dekkado has saved her life and at this point she's still so upset about what she went through that she won't let him leave her. I got permission for her to spend the night here with Dekkado." Hana explained.

In the middle of the night Hana woke up as Dekkado gently laid Cindy in her bed then lightly touched Hana's shoulder.

"What are you doing?" Hana whispered.

"Something came up, I'll be back shortly, the rest of the team needed to talk to me about something. If she wakes up just tell her I'll be right back." Dekkado told her.

"Alright." Hana said a little uncertainly, but decided to wait to question him about it in the morning.

When Hana woke up the next morning Cindy was asleep, back on the couch with Dekkado. Once she had gotten everyone up and got all three kids settled down to eat breakfast she cornered Dekkado in the living.

"Alright, what was going on last night when you snuck off?" she asked.

"It was nothing, just a slight complication with the case." Dekkado replied never meeting her gaze.

"Well if it had to do with our case shouldn't I know about?" Hana asked.

"The less you know the better." Dekkado replied looking relieved as Cindy came into the room, a half eaten bagel in one hand, she grabbed his hand and dragged him back to the kitchen with her.

After convincing Cindy that she had to stay at the orphanage while Dekkado was at work he and Hana headed to the police station. The closer they got, the quieter Dekkado became. The walk to the Deckerd room was a silent one, making Hana worry more and more about what had been going on the night before.

When they stepped into the room there was none of the usual morning chatter, instead the room was deathly quite and the entire Brave Police force was lined up along the far wall of the office all looking guilty except for Drill Boy who just looked confused. Saejima was pacing at the edge of the loft looking ready to shoot them all


	18. Chapter 18

"Would anyone mind explaining to me what happened last night?" Saejima demanded.

"I was sent to keep an eye on the orphanage just in case those guys had any partners who might try to kidnap anyone else from there." Drill Boy said.

"Is this true?" Saejima asked.

"Yes sir, I sent him out there around nine last night and he had just left when I arrived to drop Cindy off this morning. You can ask Mrs. Shinsetsu if you'd like, she saw him there." Dekkado replied.

"Very well, Drill Boy, go on patrol." Saejima told him.

"But what's going on?" Drill Boy asked.

"That's what I intend to find out, now go."

Once Drill Boy had left Saejima calmly walked to one side of the room where he could see everyone in the main office, as well as Dekkado, then he practically yelled, "What on earth were you thinking?"

"Might help if we knew what you were talking about." Gun Max said calmly.

"I'm talking about this." he replied as a video began to play on the large monitor.

The video was so grainy that the vague shapes of what might have been people was all that could be made out, two of them seemed like they might be sitting as others walked around them then started asking them questions about the human trafficking ring. The voices of the people asking the questions sounded so mechanical and similar that you couldn't even tell how many people where there interrogating the men. When the men refused to answer there was a bit of a scuffle then one of the men let out an ear piercing shriek shortly followed by a similar scream from the other. After that the mechanical voices made threats of removing other body parts and the men finally started giving them names of their contacts and partners.

"Well at least someone got some straight answers out of them, no one here seemed to be having any luck getting them to talk." Dumpson said.

"You expect me to believe that none of you were responsible for this?" Saejima asked.

"Why would you think it was us? That video is such poor quality you can't make out anything to identify the interrogators and the voices are so distorted they could never be identified. Anyone with a little technical knowhow could set that up, there's no way to prove or figure out who it was." Shadow Maru pointed out.

"And the two men conveniently refuse to give us any information about who was there. Probably has something to do with a threat at the end of the video about them never being safe anywhere and their interrogators being able to get to them no matter how high security of prison they're put in." Saejima said.

"Makes sense if these people were already able to sneak them out of and back into the prison without anyone noticing." McCrane said.

"So none of you can tell me who the voices on that video are?" Saejima asked.

"Nope, really can't be sure." Gun Max said.

"Yeah, can't even tell how many people are talking; let alone who might be saying what." Power Joe added.

"Well if you're able to figure anything out you're to let me know and give them a pat on the back, they did what most officers can only wish to do to rapists." Saejima told them.

"Yes Sir." the entire team replied.

"What exactly did they do to them?" Hana asked.

"They cut off any chance of those men ever raping another woman, it may not be the legal way of doing things and they would be in a whole lot of trouble if they're ever caught, but it's certainly what those men deserved and did get us the information we needed." Saejima told her.

"It does seem like a fitting punishment for rape, now I just hope they rot in prison for the rest of their lives." Hana said.

"I'm sure they'll be going away for a good long time with all the evidence we have." Saejima told her then said, "And you shouldn't even be here, you should be at home resting and letting that arm heal."

"I'll take it easy, sitting around an empty house would be torture and I'd probably start cleaning or something, that would be even harder on my arm." Hana told him.

"Fine, but if you pop those stitches one more time I'm sending you home for a week and giving everyone in the station strict orders to take you home immediately if you try to come back here." Saejima told.

"I'll be extra careful then." Hana assured him before he left.

As soon as Saejima was gone Hana turned an expectant stare at Dekkado, "So that's where you were sneaking off to last night?"

Dekkado hesitated for a long moment not seeming sure what to say and Hana said, "Well at least you found something more deserving of your anger than my poor defenseless wall."

"I'm really sorry about that, I usually don't over react like that, I-"

"It's alright," Hana cut in, "We all have something that can push us over the edge. The wall I don't mind, but really, torturing those men? Do you know how much trouble you could have gotten into? Who knows what they would have done with you if anyone found out. And what if those men had bled to death from their wounds?" she asked.

"Oh, no one would let them get off that easily, death is way too good for those monsters, they deserve to rot in prison for at least a little while before they die." Dumpson said then with an almost evil grin he added, "The wounds were cauterized shortly after everything was removed, so they wouldn't bleed to death."

"That still doesn't make what you did legal or right." Hana said.

"There's nothing to connect us to it and we never said it was us. Anyways what really matters is that we now have the information we need." Dumpson replied.

Sighing Hana said, "Fine, what information do we have now?"

"Names and locations of several of the people they sell the girls to. Unfortunately we also know that there are several more, but only the guy in charge knows anything about the others and he's under constant guard at the prison hospital, so he was inaccessible for questioning." McCrane told her.

"Well at least it's a start, I take it I'm going to be staying here and seeing what I can find out about these people." Hana said.

"Yes, you and I will be staying here to do that and then as soon as everyone else is done with their patrols they'll be joining us. Until we get everyone of the people involved arrested this case will be our main priority." Dekkado told her.

"Good, just try to avoid the less than legal interrogation tactics next time, even if it is what they deserve." Hana told them.

-

"This is impossible," Hana said a couple of hours later, "there are hundreds of thousands of people trafficked, even with what we know, even if we arrest all the men that we know of who are involved in human trafficking it wouldn't even be the tip of the iceberg. There would still be thousands of people forcing women, children and even men into slavery. Sometimes I just feel so useless, like nothing we can do is really going to make a difference." she said pushing away from her desk and pacing across her office.

Dekkado stopped her, resting a hand on her shoulder, "I know it feels like that sometimes, but I'm sure it matters a lot to Cindy and the other girls we rescued and will to any others we can save too." Dekkado told her.

"I guess you're right, I just wish there were more we could do, something that would make a major impact, find a way to save more than just a few." she said, hugging Dekkado and laying her head on his chest she added, "Especially the ones who are being forced into prostitution, I can't even imagine how they can keep going like that, I don't think I could, if I were in that situation I think I would fight to the death to escape rather than live like that. The ones who do survive must be incredibly strong to survive such a nightmare."

"I know and we'll find a way to help more of them, I'm sure of it." Dekkado told her tightening his arms around her briefly and kissing her forehead.

"Awwww isn't that sweet." Power Joe said as he walked into the room.

"Yeah, real sweet, we go out on patrol and they get to stay here and make out." Dumpson said as he and McCrane fallowed him in.

"We were not making out." Hana said.

"Yeah, when they're making out, trust me you'll be able to tell by the missing buttons." Gun Max said grinning at Hana and Dekkado, both of whom turned brilliant shades of red at the mention of the situation they had gotten into while tied up together.

"What do you mean missing buttons?" Shadow Maru asked raising an eye ridge.

"Now that we're all here we need to discuss the case." Dekkado said as Drill Boy followed the others in.

"But what about-" Drill Boy started to ask but was quickly cut off.

"Right now the case is more important." Dekkado replied firmly.

"So what did you find out?" McCrane asked.

"Well you know those horror stories where the robots rise up and take over the world? Any of you want to take over the world? Because when you realize just how sick and evil some humans can be that doesn't seem like such a bad idea." Hana said before she and Dekkado filled them in on what they had found out.

-

After work Hana and Dekkado started to head back to her house when Hana said, "Why don't we stop out at that soccer field, I was going to order a pizza for dinner and need to find out what the girls want on theirs and they probably won't be heading home for another half hour. Anyways I could use a change of scenery for a little while."

"Sounds like a good idea then." Dekkado replied.

When they got to the soccer field Samantha was sitting at one end of the field playing with her dolls and there was no sign of Drill Boy or Alexis.

Hana walked up to her and asked, "Where is your sister?"

"She kicked the ball into the trees and went to look for it and Drill Boy went to help her. She must have kicked it really far because it's taking them a long time to find it." Samantha told her.

"Stay here with Dekkado, I'll be right back." Hana said before heading off into the woods.

She had only gone a few feet past the tree line when she spotted Drill Boy and Alexis about a dozen feet away, kissing and completely oblivious as she approached them. Drill Boy's one hand was making its way slowly down Alexis's back to below her waist and continuing.

"You're hand goes an inch lower and I cut it off, cut other things off and never let you two go anywhere alone again." Hana said loudly causing both of them to jump and spin to face her. Drill Boy looked like a deer caught in headlights and Alexis was blushing deeply.

After a moment Drill Boy recovered a little and said something under his breath that made Alexis clamp a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing.

"What was that?" Hana asked.

"Nothing." Drill Boy replied then taking one look at Hana's determined stare said, "I said it's not like there's anything there for you to cut off. I don't spend enough time in this body for anything to have developed very much."

"So there's nothing to worry about." Alexis told her.

"Sure didn't look like nothing to me the way his hand was going." Hana said.

"So? I don't mind." Alexis told her.

"Well I do." Hana said.

For a moment Alexis looked like she was going to argue then she hesitated a moment before saying, "You know probably half of the girls in my class have already had sex, so how about a compromise? I'll promise no sex until after we're married and you let me decide if he's allowed to touch me anywhere you don't think is appropriate and he doesn't get any bare skin, none of that hand up the shirt stuff that some of the girls at school think is okay on the second date. I am almost seventeen, most of the girls my age wouldn't even think about promising their parents that much."

Reluctantly Hana said, "Alright." then turning her attention to Drill Boy she said, "But if I ever find out you try to do anything more than that, or anything she's not comfortable with, I'll just throw this whole body in a trash compactor and tell Syunsuke not to build you another one until Alexis is at least eighteen or maybe twenty one."

"I won't, I never would have even if it you hadn't threatened me." Drill Boy replied.

"Alright then, Alexis what do you want on your pizza?" Hana asked as they headed out of the trees.

-

That evening after getting the girls to bed and telling Dekkado about what had happened with Drill Boy and Alexis, Hana asked, "Do you think I'm too strict or old fashioned?"

"No, you're protective, but not over protective, you make a good mother for those girls, and I'm sure you would be a wonderful mother if you had children of your own." Dekkado told her a slight note of sadness sneaking into his voice as he looked away from her.

"What is it?" Hana asked pulling his face back to look at her.

"I love you with all my heart, but for us to be together would mean you would never be able to have children of your own." he told her.

"I've never been sure I wanted children of my own anyways. I love my job, I wouldn't want to have to leave while pregnant and if I had a baby I wouldn't want to leave them until they were old enough to start school, that would mean years away from work. I think I would be perfectly content to just stick with adopting older children, the ones who are old enough to go to school and be left alone for a little while, but still need a loving family, like Alexis and Sam." Hana told him then smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck, "and I love you too."

"You're really sure about that?" Dekkado asked.

"Which part, that I love you or about having kids?" Hana asked.

"Both." Dekkado replied.

"Having kids yes, that I love you, more sure than I've ever been about anything in my entire life." she told him as their eyes met and she started to lean up to kiss him then he suddenly pulled back. For a moment she was confused until she realized someone must have contacted him over his comlink.

"What was that?" she asked when he finally turned his attention back to her.

"Syunsuke, he says my new body is ready and he want's me to come in right away to make sure everything is working properly." Dekkado told her.

"When you get there tell him his timing stinks." Hana said.

"Maybe there's something I can do about that." Dekkado said.

"What-" Hana started to ask, but was cut off as Dekkado pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

Hana wrapped her arms around him and began to understand how Alexis and Drill Boy had failed to notice as she approached them earlier that day, as everything else just seemed to fade away until they finally separated, said goodnight and Dekkado headed back to the station.

The next morning as Hana was getting the girls their breakfast Alexis asked, "What are you smiling about?"

"What do you mean?" Hana asked.

"You haven't stopped smiling since you got up." Alexis told her then with a knowing grin she said, "He kissed you didn't he?"

Hana couldn't keep her smile from spreading as she said, "Yes."

"You are so lucky." Alexis said.

"Why?"

"Because you get to go work around all the bots, if they ask you why you're smiling like that you can tell them the truth. After the first time Drill Boy kissed me, when the kids at school asked why I was so happy I had to just tell them I was in a good mood and make something up since I couldn't tell them about Drill Boy." Alexis told her.

"Yeah, I guess dating a robot does have its challenges, but-

"it's so worth it." Alexis cut in.

"Exactly." Hana replied as they sat down to eat.

-

Later that morning Hana was sitting at her desk working on finishing a report. Or at least giving the task her most valiant attempt was more accurate. It wasn't her fault that Dekkado, kept shooting her sly come-hither looks around his data pad, and making her duck her head to conceal her pleased grin and flushed cheeks.

After a few moments, Drill Boy, approached the edge of the loft. "Psst, Hana," he whispered after watching her work for a few moments.

"Please make it quick, Drill Boy," Hana responded with a smile but without looking up from her work. "I told Saejima I'd have this report to him in," she glanced at her watch, "about twenty minutes."

"I will, I promise," Drill Boy vowed.

"Okay then, what is it?" Hana asked, turning a page of the report.

"Alexis says she thinks my best feature is my eyes," Drill Boy said.

Hana looked up and considered Drill Boy's wide apple green optics. "She's right," Hana agreed catching Dekkado's eye as she looked passed Drill Boy. "They're very expressive. Was that all you wanted to tell me, Drill Boy?" she asked watching as Dekkado who was distracted looking at her, bumped into the pencil can as he set his data pad down, knocking it over and dumping pencils all over the desk and floor. Hana tried not to grin as she turned her attention back to Drill Boy.

Drill Boy lowered his voice. "That got me wondering" he whispered conspiratorially. "What do you think Dekkado's best feature is?"

Hana looked back at Dekkado, watching as he got down on his knees and leaned under the desk to get one of the runaway pencils, blissfully unaware of the conversation Hana and Drill Boy were having. An almost devilish grin spread across Hana's face as she watched Dekkado or more accurately his backside which was all that was visible at the moment, then announced, clear, crisp and unmistakable, "Well, for one thing, Dekkado has an absolutely adorable ass."

Admittedly, Hana was expecting a hardcore reaction from everyone present whether or not they were involved in the conversation, a goal she certainly achieved. Even Gun Max's head jerked up from polishing a massive pistol when the magic words left her lips. What she wasn't expecting was for Dekkado to jerk up suddenly under the desk, shaking his desk and the others attached to it and sending everything on them flying. A second later he pulled his head out from under the desk and, still down on his knees stared, wide-eyed, at her.

"Was that really necessary?" Power Joe asked as he tried to straighten the papers on his desk.

Dekkado didn't seem to hear the question, he continued to absolutely gape at Hana, mouth opening and shutting slightly like a fish out of water. "H…H…Hana," he stammered.

Before Dekkado could string another set of words together, Dumpson started laughing close to hysterically. The sound seemed to snap Dekkado out of his shocked trance and he stared at Dumpson. "What's so funny?" he asked, a note of something akin to unhappiness and surprise in his voice and eyes.

"You… you act like she's never… hoo, boy… you act like she's never told you that before," Dumpson managed between laughs.

Dekkado shook his head blankly in response. "It shows," Dumpson replied. "Ayako tells me that all the time and you don't see me trashing the whole office."

Everyone in the room groaned loudly and covered their ears. "Ugh, Dumpson! We didn't need to know that!" Power Joe groaned, shooting him a death glare.

Dumpson's only response was to smile smugly at his colleague. "Jealous much?" he replied in a mock sugary-sweet voice.

"No!" seemed to be the group consensus as they all groaned and clamped their hands over their ears once more.

Hana shot Dekkado a quick grin before she went back to finishing her report.

Half an hour later Hana was just returning from turning in the report when the phone rang and Dekkado answered it. A moment later he hung up, "We've got an emergency off the coast and we don't have a lot of time. Everyone move out, I'll fill you in on the way." he said as he scooped Hana right out of her seat and they ran out of the office.


	19. Chapter 19

This is where Love and Justice and Shadows start to combine in places so it would be easiest if you read both stories, but I am trying include all the details necessary to understand what's going on if you only read this one.

* * *

"What's going on?" Hana asked as they tore down the road towards the coast.

"A couple of archeologists were trying a new deep sea submarine and something went wrong. They're sinking straight towards a trench that's too deep for anyone to get to them without being crushed. We may already be too late," Dekkado told her.

When they arrived there was already a news van and a reporter on one of the docks.

"How did the news crew get out here before us?" Hana asked as she got out and Dekkado transformed.

"They were already hear, Ayako mentioned it this morning, said she was going to try to get down here too, something about there being an interesting story behind how they got the funding to buy the sub," Dumpson told her.

"I've got us patched into the ships radio so we can communicate with them and the sub, but we've got a problem," Dekkado said, leaving the radio connection on a speaker so Hana could here what was going on too.

"What's that?" McCrane asked.

"They're already too deep for us to reach them and the other sub is still a good fifteen minutes away, by the time it get's here they'll be to deep for even it to reach them. We can send Super Build Tiger to fly it in, but even then it will probably take too long for it to descend to catch up with the other sub before it's to deep to handle the pressure,"

"We'll at least try, where is the other sub?" McCrane asked before they combined into Super Build Tiger.

The people on the ship gave them the coordinates for the sub.

A moment later a woman came on the radio and said, "Contact the Brave Police,"

"We just arrived ma'am, I'm officer Dekkado, we're trying to find a way to get you out of there," Dekkado replied, his heart breaking for the woman who sounded as if she had already resigned herself to the fact that she would die down there.

"Is Shadow Maru with you?" she asked.

"Yes," Dekkado replied, surprised that she knew their names or would be more concerned with who was there than getting rescued.

"I need to talk to him, he knows my sister and I'd like him to give her a message if I don't get out of this alive," she told him.

"Okay," Dekkado replied.

From the horrified look on Shadow Maru's face it was obvious that he knew who was on the radio as soon as he had been asked for and a second later he had cut off Dekkado's connection to listen in on their conversation.

A few minutes later Hana noticed what looked like another robot flying towards the ship, "Who is that?" she asked.

"It can't be, it looks like Kagerou," Dekkado said as the robot landed on the ship and grabbed the cable that they had planned to attach to the broken sub to bring it up.

"I thought you said he was dead," Hana said as she watched the robot hesitate for a split second before he dove into the water.

As soon as he dove into the water any doubts about who it was were wiped out as Shadow Maru yelled, "Kagerou what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Apparently he's not," Dekkado said.

A few minutes later Hana was really wishing she could hear what Shadow Maru was hearing over his radio because he was suddenly so stunned by something that his mouth was hanging open.

"Can you hear what's going on?" Hana asked Dekkado.

"No, he's on a private frequency, I have no idea what's going on," Dekkado replied.

"Remind me to learn how to hack into Shadow Maru's radio, this is driving me crazy," Gun Max said as they continued to watch Shadow Maru.

A few minutes later Shadow Maru dropped to his knees, a look of complete devastation on his face, "I've lost him, again," Shadow Maru said quietly.

Dekkado rested a comforting hand on his shoulder, a moment later Shadow Maru's head shot up and he switched back to the ships radio frequency that everyone could here, "The cable is attached, get that sub up here now!" he told the people on the ship.

"You knew Kagerou was alive, didn't you?" Dekkado asked Shadow Maru.

"Yes," Shadow Maru replied before flying off to wait on the ship.

"And he's not going to give us any more information than that," Gun Max said.

"I guess we'll just have to wait to find out," Dekkado said then called the Build Team to come back.

After a long wait the sub finally reached the surface and Dekkado combined into J-Decker then carried Hana out to the ship to check on the people inside of the sub after he helped Super Build Tiger lift it onto the ship then carefully moved Kagerou's badly crushed body off of it.

Shadow Maru was instantly at his side, a scanner sliding down over his eye as he started running scans on him.

The sub opened and a woman with long dark red hair jumped out and ran over to where Shadow Maru and Kagerou were.

Hana helped the man out of the sub and made sure he was alright before turning her attention back to the others. She was just in time to see Super Build Tiger head towards Kagerou and the woman who had been in the sub suddenly took up a very defensive looking position between them and Kagerou.

"I'm going to have you ride back to the station with Shadow Maru, the woman seems to be quite attached to Kagerou and will probably want to stay with him as much as possible, I can fly her back to the station," Dekkado told Hana, then added, "Maybe you can get some more information out of him on the way back,"

"That's fine," Hana said watching as the woman reluctantly let them take Kagerou.

A moment later they had taken off and Hana walked over to Shadow Maru, "Dekkado said you get to take me back to the station," she told him.

He didn't say anything, just kept watching as the others flew away, but held out a hand for her then flew to the shore before transforming and driving them back to the station, never saying a word during the whole drive.

They walked into the repair bay just in time to hear the woman introducing herself.

"Kate McFerran. I found his AI chip a little over a year ago." she told Syunsuke.

The way she watched everything Syunsuke was doing to Kagerou it was obvious she didn't trust him.

"Over a year ago?" he asked then glanced up at Shadow Maru, "And I suppose you knew about this?"

"Only since Christmas, Rachel is Kate's sister, it was completely by accident that I found out about him when she decided to introduce me to Kate," Shadow Maru replied.

"So where did he get the body from?" Syunsuke asked.

"My computer, stove and some pop cans," Kate replied.

"What?" Syunsuke asked looking shocked.

"When I found the AI chip I had set it on my computer, somehow he absorbed it to create a body and then the other things to get it to the size it is now," Kate told him then asked, "Is he going to be alright?"

"I won't know until I can get to his AI chip and I can't find the release latch for his helmet, it's different from the way he was originally built," Syunsuke told her.

Kate reached out and carefully pressed seemingly invisible release buttons on his helmet, it took a couple of tries before they finally released.

"How on earth did you know where those were? I saw you release them and still can't tell where they are," Syunsuke asked as he carefully started to remove his helmet.

"I've used them enough to know exactly where they are," Kate replied.

"Why would he let you do that, he never liked people getting that close to his AI chip," he said then let out a frustrated sigh when he found nothing but smooth metal under the helmet instead of it being open to the internal workings of his head like it was on the others.

"One because even without the helmet his AI is still protected," Kate replied running her fingers across Kagerou's head, "two because I'm his wife, he trusts me," she said as she finally found the release for the piece of metal that covered his AI chip.

"His wife?" the other Brave Police all said in shock, except for Shadow Maru. Hana on the other hand wasn't that surprised, she had suspected there was some romantic involvement between the two since she had seen how concerned Kate was about Kagerou back on the ship.

"Yes," Kate replied glancing back at everyone standing behind her.

"This isn't good," Syunsuke said drawing everyone's attention back to Kagerou.

"What's wrong?" Kate asked sounding on the verge of panicking.

"The AI chip is cracked, the metal around it put too much pressure on it," he told her.

"But he's still alive right? You said there's still brain activity right?" Kate asked desperately, turning to Shadow Maru.

"Yes, there is. I think he is still somewhat aware of what's going on, the activity changes and increases when ever you speak," Shadow Maru replied.

"But that still leaves us helpless to do anything, there's no way to fix an AI chip, not a sentient one at least," Syunsuke said.

"Could it heal? If he's still alive, then isn't there a chance it could heal on it's own?" Kate asked.

"I honestly don't know, I've never seen an injury like this before, all we can do is wait and see," Syunsuke told her.

"I don't think he likes that idea, brain activity is increasing like he's getting angry or frustrated about something," Shadow Maru told them.

All of a sudden there was a flash of sparks as electricity rippled across the surface of the AI chip.

"What is he doing?" Syunsuke asked.

"I think he wants something and is trying to communicate, but I'm not sure what he wants," Shadow Maru said.

"Oh Kage, I wish we could figure out what you wanted," Kate said running her hand over his dented and crushed shoulder.

Suddenly the waves of electricity switched direction, shifting around a few times before retuning to the direction they had been going earlier and forming what looked like an arrow.

Kate leaned in to get a closer look at the end of the AI chip the waves were pointing to then asked, "What's that wire for?" as soon as she did the electricity flickered brightly then stopped.

Syunsuke looked at it for a moment then said, "It's the main connection line from his AI chip to the rest of his body. Unfortunately I can't possibly repair it without removing the AI chip and with it broken there won't be any energy supply to his AI chip and that could kill him before it can heal."

Kagerou's AI chip flashed with electricity again, "What is it Kage?" Kate asked.

After a moment the electricity began to form shapes and then letters, "C. A. N. S. R. K. What the heck does that mean? It makes no sense and it's using too much energy for him to be communicating like this," Syunsuke said.

"You said something about him absorbing cans when his body was being regenerated, but what does the R.K. mean?" Shadow Maru asked.

Kate thought for a minute, "Recycle king!" she said excitedly, a short burst of electricity running across Kagerou's AI in response.

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Syunsuke asked.

"When his body was being restored I made fun of him for walking around with cans stuck to him and said I was going to call him recycle king and eventually held cans to the top of his head until they were absorbed enough to stay there. I think he's trying to say if we hold the wire in place it'll reattach on it's own," Kate explained, earning another flash from Kagerou's AI.

Kate pulled a chair over next to where Kagerou was laying.

"What are you doing?" Syunsuke asked.

"Getting that wire reattached. Like you said he doesn't like anyone messing with his head and no offence, but I'm not going to let anyone who was involved in trying to kill him years ago do something like this," Kate replied as she sat down then very carefully got a hold of the wire and gently pressed it to the spot it had broken off of.

After that everyone, but Shadow Maru headed back to the main office, "Well this has been an interesting day," Dumpson said as they all sat down at their desks.

"Yeah, I never would have imagined Kagerou was still around," Power Joe said.

"I'm more surprised that not only is he still around, but he's married, it does explain why he was willing to give his own life to save to save her," McCrane said.

"I'm just worried about what's going to happen now, you know Azuma isn't going to be happy about this," Dekkado said.

About half an hour later Hana headed back down to the repair bay, "Can I get anything for you?" she asked as she walked into the room.

"No, thanks, I'm fine," Kate replied.

"You can get her something to drink Hana, preferably juice, something good and healthy," Shadow Maru told the woman.

"I said I was fine," Kate told him.

"You need to keep you're strength up, you know that," he replied his eyes locking with hers for a moment.

Hana could tell there was something else going on the way he was looking at Kate, but gave up trying to figure it out when she couldn't come up with any logical explanations or even remotely possible ones.

"Yeah, I guess he is right, some juice would be good," Kate said.

"Okay, I'll be right back," Hana told her before leaving the room.

A little while Hana returned, gave Kate the juice then headed back to the office just in time to hear Saejima telling everyone that Azuma was going to be coming in about an hour.

"What do you think he's going to do? I mean if Kagerou has been around long enough to have fallen in love and gotten married and we're just now finding out about it he's obviously not been causing any trouble," Hana pointed out.

"I don't know, but we won't let him do anything too drastic," Saejima told her.

The next half hour was spent filling out reports on that mornings events until Dekkado told Hana that Shadow Maru had asked for her to come to the repair bay.

When she got there she said, "Dekkado said you wanted me,"

"Yes, could you please take Kate down to the cafeteria and make sure she gets something healthy to eat?" Shadow Maru asked.

"Of course," Hana replied.

Kate glared at Shadow Maru for a moment clearly not wanting to leave Kagerou's side, although he was fully conscious now.

Kagerou rested his hand on Kate's stomach, "Go on, I'll be fine, you have more important people to worry about than me," he said quietly, although Hana was just barely able to make out what he had said.

"Alright, I'll be right back," Kate relented, gently kissing Kagerou's forehead before reluctantly following as Hana led her out of the room.

Kate was completely silent as she followed Hana down the halls, nervously fiddled with a necklace she was wearing.

As they stepped into an elevator Hana smiled reassuringly at Kate, having a pretty good idea of what was worrying her, "If you're worried about how we're going to take you're being married to Kagerou don't," she told her.

"You don't think I'm completely crazy or something?" Kate asked.

"Of course not, of the eight sentient robots working for the Brave Police two are married to human women, three are dating and one is engaged. And I happen to be dating Dekkado, so I can certainly understand your choosing to spend your life with one of them. I also know what I go through any time Dekkado get's hurt, so we'll get you something to eat and then get you back to Kagerou's side as quickly as possible," Hana told her.

"Thank you," Kate said, seeming to relaxing a little.


	20. Chapter 20

Merry Christmas everyone!

* * *

After grabbing something to eat Kate and Hana headed back to the repair bay.

As they passed the Deckerd room Kate froze and Hana realized Azma was in there and saying, "Kagerou's AI chip should be removed and locked away as soon as it has been repaired enough to be moved. He could still be a threat to public safety."

"Kate just ignore him, that's vice commissioner Azma, he's a jerk and has never really liked any of the robots being sentient, don't worry about it," Hana told her when she noticed Kate was tensing up.

"But he hasn't caused any trouble recently and I'm guessing he's been back for a while now. Couldn't we just leave him be as long as he's not causing any trouble?" Dekkado asked.

"He shouldn't even still be functioning, he's lucky I haven't requested that his AI chip simply be destroyed since reformatting seems to have failed," Azma replied.

Kate suddenly stormed into the office and Hana quickly followed her, "How dare you! You tried to kill him and he reacted like any living being would have and fought for his life then nearly died to save Shadow Maru. Now by some miracle he's still alive, after being reformatted, blown up, drowned and crushed and you want to lock him up for simply being alive! He's been back for over a year, if he were any danger to anyone don't you think you would have known he was back a long time ago? All he wants is to be allowed to live his life in peace, why can't you just leave him alone?" Kate demanded angrily.

"Because he belongs to us and we can do whatever we like with him," Azma replied.

"He is a living sentient being and he doesn't belong to anyone," Kate told him.

"He is a highly advanced piece of machinery, perhaps we will simply have his AI chip destroyed, it would save any chance of future trouble," he said.

Kate let out a low growl as she did what Hana had often wanted to do to Azma when he talked about the Brave Police like that. She slugged him in the face, so hard that he stumbled backwards several feet before falling to the ground and from the looks of it she had broken his nose, "You are not going to kill him, you are not going to lock him up or do anything else to him. I'm not going to watch my children grow up without their father because some brainless monster is too blind to see that Kagerou is just as much alive as any human! Anyone wants to hurt him they'll have to go through me first," Kate said.

Hana was stunned as what Kate had said sunk in, it had been her first suspicion with the way Shadow Maru and Kagerou had been treating Kate, but she had been so sure that it was impossible that she had quickly dismissed the idea.

"Alright! It's about time someone did that," Drill Boy cheered.

Kate turned to face him smiling a little until she noticed everyone else in the room silently staring at her, all looking rather stunned.

"What do you mean your children growing up without a father if Kagerou get's locked up?" Dumpson finally asked.

"I meant exactly what I said, I'm pregnant with Kagerou's babies," Kate replied sounding confident and unworried although Hana could the fear in her eyes.

"That's impossible, they're just machines, they can't reproduce, certainly not with a human," Azma said standing back up.

Kate spun around to face him and smirked when he flinched away from her, "They are not just machines, they are living, sentient beings and apparently they can reproduce with humans. Kagerou said I was pregnant and Shadow Maru said his scans indicate that as well," Kate told him.

"Then obviously they aren't his children," Azma replied.

If looks could kill Azma would have been dead and cremated within seconds, luckily for him he only ended up back on the floor with a large bruise forming around his eye, while Hana mentally cheered, "How dare you accuse me of being unfaithful to my husband!" Kate exclaimed, her whole body shaking with barely contained rage, "I have never been with any man other than Kage, so if they aren't his children then it would be an even bigger miracle," Kate told him, looking ready to beat him within an inch of his life if he so much as moved a muscle. Hana rested her hand on Kate's shoulder trying to calm her down, but causing her to flinch instead, then led her to the other side of the desk where she couldn't so easily attack Azma. As much fun as it was to watch Hana didn't want her to get in trouble for beating him up too much.

"That makes no sense, he's right, they shouldn't be able to reproduce, they're not equipped for it, they don't produce any type of sperm or anything like that," Syunsuke said.

"Kagerou is a lot different from the others, far more advanced, at least in comparison to Shadow Maru. He thinks it's because of his AI chip basically forming his entire body from scratch, advancements and changes that are barely starting to occur in Shadow Maru are fully developed in Kagerou. It's like the blue prints for those changes are there in the AI chip, but show up slowly when it's already in a manmade body, but if it has to form it from scratch it forms the new body with all the changes complete," Kate told him still glaring across the desk as Azma slowly got to his feet then stepped back several more feet.

"So you're saying we could all eventually be able to have kids?" Dumpson asked a hint of hopefulness in his voice.

"I think so, although there's no way of knowing how long it would take," Kate replied.

"Aww, is someone wanting to be a daddy?" Drill Boy asked grinning at Dumpson.

"Can we please get back on subject, we still have a rouge robot to deal with," Azma said.

"No you don't, he's coming home with me and unless for some highly improbable reason he causes any trouble, you will leave him alone," Kate told him, taking a step forward, causing him to take a couple steps away from her.

"She's right, as long as he's not causing any trouble there's no reason for us to bother them," McCrane said.

"And with a wife and children involved, to lock him up and separate them without a better reason than things that happened years ago that in all honesty were in self defense, would be cruel and wrong," Saejima said.

"Not to mention the valuable information we could get from him about what changes to expect in the others, if he would be willing to let us study those changes," Syunsuke added.

"He deserves a second chance, he shouldn't be punished now for what happened years ago, he never hurt anyone and he was only trying to survive. Everyone seems to think I was brave for not trying to stop myself from being reformatted when I was created and perhaps I was, but I believe it would have taken just as much courage to leave his brother and everything he knew and escape, knowing that he would be hunted and forever have to live in hiding. Sometimes it takes just as much courage to fight for your right to live as it does to face death," Dekkado said.

"And I think we'd all be safer if we left him alone. Police work is dangerous enough; I don't want to have to go up against a homicidal pregnant woman. I think she was completely serious when she said we'd have to go through her to get to Kagerou," Yuuta added.

"You'd have to go through me too," Shadow Maru said appearing in the doorway.

"Why aren't you with Kage?" Kate demanded, looking terrified by the thought of Kagerou being left alone.

"He's fine, Rachel came to check on you and she's staying with him until I bring you back," Shadow Maru told her.

"You left my husband unable to move, in a building full of people who could try to kill him, with no one to protect him, but my sister?" Kate demanded angrily.

"You're sister with a hand gun and a rather large shotgun that Gun Max uses when he's in his human sized body," Shadow Maru told her.

"You gave her my guns?" Gun Max asked.

"Yes," Shadow Maru replied.

"She damages them and you're dead," Gun Max told him then turned to Kate, "Long as she knows how to shoot, she'll be just fine."

"Thanks, but I really would like to get back to him anyways," Kate said.

"Go on then, we'll let you know what's decided," Dekkado said, "No matter what's decided, I give you my word I'll do nothing to interfere with Kagerou going back to his life with you," he added.

"That goes for me too," McCrane said, "As long as he's not causing any trouble I won't have any part in splitting up your family."

"That goes for all of us," Dumpson added, while the others nodded their agreement.

"Thank you all," Kate said before she and Shadow Maru left the room.

As soon as Kate was gone Azma left to get some ice on his face and Hana said, "I like her, can we invite her over any time Azma is going to be here?"

"I think we should," Drill Boy said, "Did you see the way he was cowering away from her after the second time she hit him?"

"Oh yeah, that was priceless, please tell me someone got video of that," Gun Max said.

"I got the second hit, but wasn't recording for the first one," Power Joe said and was what everyone else said they had gotten, except for Dumpson who standing, leaning against the wall and slowly starting to grin.

"So how much do you think a video of both hits would be worth?" he asked casually.

"You got it?" Drill Boy asked excitedly.

"Of course, I knew the moment that she walked into the room things were going to get interesting and started recording. I'm surprised McCrane didn't figure that out too," Dumpson said.

"I could tell, I just didn't realize it would be entertaining enough to need it recorded," McCrane told him.

By late afternoon everyone but Hana and Dekkado were out on patrol when Saejima returned from a meeting to determine Kagerou's fate, after briefly discussing the decisions that were made during the meeting they all headed to the repair bay to share the news.

When they got there, Kate was still sitting by Kagerou's side, her head resting on the table by his side until she heard them coming in.

"It has been decided that Kagerou will be left to live out his life as he sees fit so long as he doesn't cause any trouble," Saejima said.

"Thank goodness," Kate said.

"And, if he'd like to, once he has recovered, we'd like him to join the Brave Police," Dekkado said.

"You'd really want me working with you after all the trouble I caused you?" Kagerou asked.

"You were only doing what you had to do to survive, I can hardly hold that against you and I'm sure the others feel the same way," Dekkado replied.

"Plus any Brave Police members who are married to human women get paid just the same as the human officers, which I'm sure will come in handy with your growing family," Saejima told him, "Not to mention it seems every time a new sentient robot comes into existence it's because we're going to need them and I have a feeling discovering you're still alive means we'll need your help at some point in the near future."

"You really think so?" Kate asked.

"Without a doubt, we have no control over whether or not they become sentient, we can build a hundred AI robots and none of them will be sentient, it only happens when they're needed and it's been years since there have been any new ones," Saejima replied.

"So will you join us?" Dekkado asked.

"I'd be honored to," Kagerou replied.


End file.
